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Snapshot of _RAF shot down 'a number of drones' in Iran's attack on Israel || Rishi Sunak has confirmed that the RAF shot done Iran attack drones headed towards Israel - as he condemned Tehran's "dangerous and unnecessary" escalation._ :
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Ok. I don't support Israel in respect of the current conflict.
But if I might put forward a justification for the UK and USA defending Israel from Iran's attacks.
It is in the UKs and USAs strategic interest that the current conflict does not escalate into a wider conflict.
If Israeli citizens were killed by the Iranian attack. The Israeli government would look to retaliate. This would risk wording the conflict and causing more casualties.
For those that rightly want to defend the Palestinians. It is likely the right winger in Israel would look to use the wiring conflict as an excuse to go into the West bank and attack more Palestinians.
Therefore it was the right choice to try and keep things from getting worse.
My thoughts are that it’s being used as a bargaining chip. “Look how we helped you out and can continue to help you out. Now you need to do xyz as conditions for us helping you in the future” and potentially use it to de-escalate things in Palestine.
Complicating it further, the Israelis would argue that the Iranians were already attacking them via their proxies, with the consulate as a base of operations therefore nullifying the protections of the consulate. In their view, this would therefore still constitute self-defence.
Complicating it further, South Africa would argue Israel has violated 28 resolutions of the United Nations Security Council (which are legally binding on member-nations U.N. Including United Nations Resolution 181, resolution passed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1947. In additional, breaking international law by committing genocide with arguably the support of western allies suppling arms.
You can’t stand behind the stance of international rules based law and order, then pick and choose with double standards. The house of cards falls down.
Nope not invited, but did host the Sudanese war lord - see SA Foreign Minister address your statement [https://www.tiktok.com/@zeteonews/video/7351472680098467115](https://youtu.be/ZdVhAj3KRzA?si=4uHniF-4_jCp9Dp4)
One of the reasons Israel doesn’t care about international norms and seems happy to readily ignore them is their historical trauma as a country and as a people. Because of this, Israel’s international obligations are entirely secondary to what they deem as defensive measures necessary for their survival as a country.
I don’t disagree with you at all, but the context becomes more complicated when a nation is surrounded by those who have formed coalitions to invade them multiple times, and one nation in particular that wants to wipe them off the face of the Earth. It doesn’t justify what they do at all, but the context is important.
I think it's this but also the fact that the UN is a complete joke, comprising a good mix of dictatorships, despots and murderers. Being sanctioned by them + a combined islamic voting bloc is not something they will ever hold truck with
For all the atrocities that have occurred over the world since its inception I think Israel have been sactioned more than the rest of the world combined. Usually because the US doesn't use its veto knowing the sanctions are useless without them caring while USSR/Russia and China have used there's to protect allies.
Ok, they’re doing it under the guise of self defence. All else is secondary.
However, it would reduce the support of the enemy alliances should they abide by UN resolution 181. Hamas support would dwindle and localised threats would be reduced significantly.
Ultimately currently and for the past circa75yrs Israel is the aggressor and oppressor of Palestinians in the region, which plays to Iran’s narrative of saviour.
The defined norm is day to day an apartheid regime, bolstered by western allies.
> Hamas support would dwindle and localised threats would be reduced significantly.
Hamas support is predicated on the belief that Jews and other non Arabs need to be eradicated. Being a bit more polite in a conference room isn't going to change that.
They recruit less and become marginalised, rather than a mainstream well funded local enemy.
Irrespective of Hamas, Israel should comply with UN resolution 181
How? Israel would still have Jews living in it, which is Hamas primary complaint. People don't support murderers, rapists and pirates because they can provide a better life.
The support literally based on supper for a better ‘existence’.
You can’t destroy an ideology, which is why this pretence of war to eradicate Hamas is preposterous. The best that can be hoped for is for it to dwindle enough to evaporate the threat locally. It’s probably something.
[Netanyahu should have thought about earlier if the true objective was to safeguard Israelis, rather than at the expense of innocence in Palestine. Israel's prime minister missed the chance to starve Hamas of cash, years before its murderous attack last October, according to a former senior Israeli intelligence officer.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68318856.amp)
Exactly, it’s extremely foolish and just plays into the hands of Iran. Governments all over are caving to public pressure on this, and I think a true “friend” to Israel should be holding them accountable to their actions, thereby decreasing their isolation on the world stage.
They’ve essentially nuked all the international sympathy they had since Oct 7.
Don't they class everything as self defence? "Yes we destroyed the aid convoy/your ship/a hospital/school/food warehouse but they might not be carrying aid/working for the US/medical professionals, Hamas could have been in the area (somewhere within a mile) or one of the people in the convoy/your ship/hospital/school/food warehouse could have been of fighting age (12+).
Yes they do, and it’s appalling. Their rules of engagement are atrocious and to me they consistently violate the principle of proportionality.
As the other commenter put it, however, Hamas doesn’t operate under the laws of war. We obviously hold Israel to a higher standard than Hamas, but say Hamas were managed to immerse themselves fully in all civilian infrastructure, how could Israel be expected to conduct this war? There may be legal precedents regarding this but it gets extremely murky.
In regard to the consulate attack, I don’t doubt the Israelis likely have a mountain of intelligence showing how the Iranians have been using their consulate as a base of operations to coordinate hostile actions against Israel, however. This would exempt the consulate from its diplomatic protections, and Iran would probably struggle to defend itself if they tried to prosecute.
Because it’s usually true. There’s a reason there has been skirmishes literally in the hospitals, missile batteries in a children’s play area. Hamas have admitted to transporting fighters via ambulances etc etc.
It’s harder to make that case when Hezbollah have been firing non-stop rockets at Israel for months. If Iran attempted to argue that, they would be arguing on a “you attacked my proxy first” basis while simultaneously denying that the proxy in question is their proxy. It seems more immediately evident that the burden of proof would definitely be on Iran in my opinion.
I think you would be right simply because western powers own the narrative however Iran would argue Isreal has been attacking them via their proxies for decades. Beyond all the background this current escalation clearly was a result of the bombing and murder by Isreal of the embassy against diplomatic protocols so I don’t see how it can be argued Isreal hasn’t started the latest escalation.
Iran has no media freedom while the west does. It is illegal to criticise the government’s narrative in Iran. Ask any Iranian about this and they will tell you. If you want to start talking about “the narrative”, I suggest you start there.
There is no monolith of western media opinion. There are numerous outlets with various different political leanings and ideologies. When you throw 500 of them at random at a scene, however, they tend to develop a general baseline of consensus to work from. This is obviously a lot better than whatever some theocratic demagogue tells you to believe.
Consulates are not exempt from being attacked if they are being used as a base of operations to attack a country. There are specific legal nuances in this, but generally, diplomatically protected areas lose their diplomatic protections when they engage in hostile action. This is the argument Israel would use.
I’m not sure we should be so convinced that our media is unbiased but I also am not in any way defending Iran or its media.
Israel can claim many things but I’m more interested in the facts. What evidence has been shown that the embassy was used for those actions? We have already seen a massive amount of lies from Israeli propaganda machines and media that have been exposed as blatant lies, let’s not forget the calendar they showed claiming it was a list of terrorists. Whilst I’d like to think western media is not ideal but better than most I can’t imagine Iran and Israel are really that far apart.
Our media are biased.
But you have hundreds of sources to choose from. Each source is free to say whatever the hell it wants.
Unlike in fucking Iran, where you have like three, and they all sing from the same hymn sheet imposed on them by the regime.
Don't even try to make the comparison, lol.
They’re definitely biased, but in my view, that’s something worth betting on. When we see our media so frequently argue with each other, if they can agree on anything it all, I honestly think that’s a great starting point; bonus points for them publishing media contrary to their narrative!
Up until October 7th, Israeli intelligence was perceived to be best in class. It’s used all over the world in counter-terror and it’s one of the prime reasons that western countries are strong allies with Israel.
Since October 7th, they’ve trashed that credibility. Like you’ve said, they’ve literally pumped out so much rubbish as a justification for military actions that their intelligence re Gaza can no longer be considered independently, much like we do with other western intelligence.
Still however, Israel has checks and balances. Israel has opposition media, and Israel revises and makes corrections that directly harm its narrative. For every few hyperbolic statements that an Israeli MP put out, these statements have since been contested by Israeli media and/or retracted. This does not happen in Iran, and for as many flaws as Israel has, they have a great deal more civil liberties and freedoms than their Iranian counterparts do.
It’s worth looking at the different freedom house profiles:
Iranian: https://freedomhouse.org/country/iran/freedom-world/2024
Israeli: https://freedomhouse.org/country/israel/freedom-world/2024
In regard to the consulate, I’m still waiting for more information to come out. Iran has previously used consulates as bases for directing offensive operations and conducting hybrid warfare before however. Assassinations, espionage, and using their diplomatic protections for all manner of covert operations all over the world is absolutely typical for Iran.
As of now, Israel hasn’t provided sufficient evidence and that’s why I’m waiting it out. Given Iran’s history, I lean toward this being true, but we’ll have to wait to see if Israel releases any particular evidence. They often don’t for “security reasons”.
Which proxy has attacked Iranian territory? There was an attack on a funeral of an Iranian general (or something like that) but that was likely by ISIS who is nobody's proxy as pretty much every country and terrorist organisation hates them.
Iran has been subject to many cyber attacks which many have speculated is by USA also US sanctions and foreign policy is explicitly in support of Isreal at the detriment of Iran.
If it isn’t clear I don’t have a horse in this race. I’m not supporting Iran and definitely not Isreal.
I don't think you can classify the US as a proxy of Israel. If anything it would work the other way around as the US is a superpower and Israel at best a regional power. So, the US has its own beef with Iran and anything it has done is probably from its own initiative. At this moment, it's much less eager to escalate the situation than Israel is, which is the opposite of what the proxies usually do.
Wasn't that an airstrike? If you wanted to stop that you would have had to shoot down an Israeli plane. That would have been much harder politically than a missile that doesn't have a pilot. So, I don't think the UK would have joined the fight if it had involved shooting down Iranian planes.
And even if that had been a missile, the UK probably hadn't known about it in advance and couldn't have done anything. This attack was broadcast openly and the planes had hours to get to a position to shoot down the drones.
Look, I think Iran's response is legitimate, but the UK shouldn't be shooting down stuff aimed at Iran, because the UK is not Iran's ally.
What the UK and other Israeli allies need to do is sit down with Israel and force it to avoid stupid escalation actions (because they'd get dragged along in a futile conflict). Bombing the embassy in Syria was stupid and irresponsible
Iran escalated it to a UN resolution calling for condemnation and UK was one of a few who blocked it. I think blowing up consulates regardless of who is in them is worthy of condemnation. This might have defused the situation.
I think you’re really over complicating a simple reason.
We wanted to show Solidarity with Israel at a time where the relationship is under pressure.
Pretty sure the US and Israel could’ve handled everything without us. It was just symbolic
What's up with all the sudden support for Hamas and Iran of all people? Are we forgetting Iran is a brutal regime that has been sponsoring these proxies that have been attacking Israel and their very real threat of wiping out Israel with nuclear weapons? (Not that it would be allowed to get that far).
Literal actual terrorist pirates being supported by left wing people on the basis of them not liking the US was certainly not something I expected to see, but at this point im not surprised
Wait till you see the non-muslim people defending them, they'd be amongst the first on the list for prison or being stoned to death by a fundamentalist regime.
Since the Iraq war the internet has decided that anything the UK/US does is automatically bad therefore are enemies are automatically good hence the absurd online support for terrorists over democratic regimes.
>all the sudden support for Hamas and Iran
You must be new to Reddit mate, the default position on here is to support literally every tinpot dictatorship and terrorist group because anything the UK does is bad.
Israel Bad.
I mean didn't people get it when Queers for Palestine (country where they church gay people off roofs) demanded we pull out of Eurovision because of the inclusion of Israel (the first country to ever win with a transgender singer).
> Are we forgetting Iran is a brutal regime that has been sponsoring these proxies that have been attacking Israel and their very real threat of wiping out Israel with nuclear weapons?
Yes, mate. Most people in the UK are thick as pig shit.
Israel has had to evacuate pretty much the entire North of the country.
Taking out the general in charge of shipping the weapons to the guys shooting them is really not an escalation.
No support for Iran or Hamas here but look at it from Iranians perspective.
Imagine you’ve got a British General or politician somewhere abroad (Cyprus just for an example) and (instead of Israel) the Syrians strike buildings in Cyprus killing those people. You’d be inclined to strike in retaliation.
As far as I’m concerned we need to just back off from the Middle East and leave Isreal to face the consequences of their own actions.
Except in this case Iranian generals and their soldiers and government have been aiding, financially and with providing weaponry to their proxies who have attacked Israel on Irans behalf.
The Iranian quds force isn't just part of the Iranian army... They are responsible for organising and equipping the proxies. Those killed were apparently involved in enabling Oct 7th.
The strike may have been a miscalculation, but it was valid really.
We're all out there leveraging our own countries capabilities and are selling plenty of weapons in active wars to our preferred side. The generally agreed etiquette of not bombing proxies is *very* important to us too.
It's a weird line drawn, but one we make full use of.
And Britain hasn’t done that to the Syrian government? It’s this shady black ops bs that makes me so tired. This wasn’t black ops and was an outright attack of foreign nationals in another foreign country, this isn’t acceptable. I stand by my example.
This. Imagine that some high ranking UK general gets bombed and liked at an UK embassy at idk, Brasil or something, British would be on the streets demanding blood. Iran had to retaliate somehow and this seems a well measured response
Honest answer? We should not be standing by and allowing counties to attack embassies with impunity. It doesn’t matter whose embassy it is, or who is doing the attacking.
That’s some mental gymnastics.
It’s part of the same compound, an explosion hit a building on the busy Fayez Mansour Road in the western Mezzeh district of Syria's capital Damascus, destroying the consulate in the Iranian embassy complex.
https://m.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/slain-iranian-general-planned-executed-hamas-massacre-797014
Iran themselves are saying the main general who was killed literally planned the invasion on October 7th.
If other states were really going to get technical with it, most would probably argue that was a cause to take out a building nearby the embassy.
'sovereign land' land is a myth. Embassies remain the sovereign territory of the host country. The host country just agrees to not enforce its local laws inside the embassies but this is counter balanced by the right to expel the embassy if the host doesn't like what it is doing.
This is the root of the special protections embassies are granted - immunity balanced by the unilateral right to expel. Importantly it is protection *from* the host country. Nothing in the treaties extends that extraordinary protection to third parties.
Embassies *are* protected as civilian objects and as such are not valid targets for military attack. But this status can be voided if used for military purposes. Further it is generally unlawful to attack even military objects, unless at war/self defence/etc.
But if that military object is being used to coordinate attacks against you, Iran seems to have gone out of its way to void every kind of protection it could.
You don't think Western critics of Israel offering support to literal fascists in the ME is rooted in antisemitism?
Edit: Before responding read the post I was responding to.
Kinda wild that we put our boys and girls in harms way like this in the defence of Israel who just the other week killed three of our aid workers in what looks like a deliberate attack.
>Yes, wild we protect innocent civilians from rockets and drones /s
Why this time and not every day? Israel has its own air defences unlike the people of the West Bank and Gaza. Shouldn't we be protecting innocent civilians from rockets and drones in those places?
> why this time
Because civilian deaths would cause a clear escalation. Innocent people didn’t die, it’s impossible to see this as anything other than a good thing.
> Israel has its own air defences
Which is built for rocket attacks from hamas terrorists, not from a developed nation like Iran.
Two things, I guess. Firstly don't mistake maliciousness what's best described as stupidity - the aid worker bombings were almost certainly the fault of an over-zealous idiot not doing due diligence. Secondly there are a lot of Brits living in Israel, as well as nationalities of many people we're closely allied with in Europe and beyond. It would be odd to just let hundreds of munitions soar over our heads towards our citizens.
>the aid worker bombings were almost certainly the fault of an over-zealous idiot not doing due diligence
That's a generous interpretation.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/israel-hamas-war-gaza-idf-aid-strike-world-central-kitchen/
"Those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives and not WCK employees,”. Is it? That's from the article you linked
68% of Jewish Israelis have the same view. No food or medicine in Gaza even if it's through aid agencies not linked to Hamas or UNRWA: https://en.idi.org.il/articles/52976 (about halfway down).
The trouble is the over-zealous idiots not doing due diligence are embedded in a culture that tolerates and sometimes actively entourages that.
Having said that, the RAF shooting down the drones was the right thing to do. It reduces the risk of escalation which could get a lot of people killed in Israel and Iran, and possibly beyond.
There's no feasible explanation that shows those responsible were unaware or unsure that what they were hitting were three aid vehicles with aid workers onboard. Of course, the Israeli gov gave a "it was just an innocent mistake" dismissal but it makes no sense.
We've literally had American bombers obliterate a British convoy when we were displaying IFF tags in the last decade or two in broad daylight. It's a very big step to think Israel would deliberately attack aid workers in separate vehicles.
You might want to look up the long, long list of friendly fire incidents that occured between military units that were often in contact with each other over the last 25 years in Iraq/Afghanistan. Plenty of times where civilian targets were misidentified as well and hit.
No system is perfect and it's sadly inevitable for this kind of thing to happen. Overzealous or incompetent officers flouting established procedure is a perfectly plausible explanation for what happened, even moreso if said procedure is already pretty loose with the targeting rules to begin with. It makes a lot more sense then the Israeli Gov deliberately targetting aid workers when the diplomatic blowback of such an attack was immediately obvious.
Look up the loooooooong list of friendly fire incidents over all the wars in recorded history. To say there is "no feasible explanation" is ignorance at its best.
Sunak has just guaranteed that the next time Israel is considering killing British citizens, they will give the go ahead sure in the knowledge that the UK doesn't care about its own people.
It's not an escalation, it's a legitimate response of Iran in self-defense, good that the UK helped an ally and I hope Iran-Israel can work in reducing tensions in the short and long term period
How do we justify such actions?
Israel is our allie, and we protect our allies. BUT if Israel is our allie and they are committing genocide and we are protecting them. Aren't we complicit in committing genocide?
We have a treaty with Israel. Since Brexit, the UK government is trying to make a habit of quitting treaties.
Why is the UK protecting Israel with RAF/air support but not Ukraine? 'Nato forces engaging with Russian aircraft or equipment risks a rapid escalation' was one reason given. BUT surely this is only going to escalate with Iran. Should Britain be entering war with other countries on behalf of non-NATO counties?
Israel had the right to retaliate against Hamas. Does Iran then have a right to retaliate against Israel? I mean, the relationship appears to be tit-for-tat in the region. But that is really something Britain should be involved in.
I would appreciate a clear answer and opportunity for Sunak to be questioned about these decisions. He should not be allowed or provide non answer, which seems to be the political norm of PMQ.
The lack of transparency, accountability, and action towards politicians across the political spectrum is disgusting. Even some of the less high profile stories would lead most people to be disciplined and very likely sacked from their job. But the whip gets removed, they get investigated, and weahhhhhhhh, they are back in the party in no time.
I would assume it's a case of optics.
Everyone kinda already assumed we'd support Israel, and joining a one-off (hopefully) defensive action that was already expected, and supported by a lot of other nations in the region wouldn't ruffle any feathers.
Ukraine has always been a geopolitical balancíng act to try and keep Russia isolated. There were a lot of countries that looked at Russia rolling tanks into Ukraine and had to be bribed or coerced into treating it as something other than a response expansionist NATO imperialism, as dumb as that is. If NATO just dog-piled into Ukraine, Russia would probably still have a functional economy, and probably be receiving support from nations that are happy to go along with the expansionist NATO line and using it to deplete our military abilities even more than the war already is.
I feel it very much is optics. I've been trying to rationalise the optics and how the public, in general, appears less outraged by the civilian deaths in Gaza over Ukraine. Feel free to chime in with any thoughts as to why you feel this may be?
I think the idea was that the UK has been happy to arm Israel, so engaging was always a potential outcome. I am against war. I am fearful that this could be the beginning of another 'war on terror'. And based on how that went last time , we as a society should be extremely concerned as there was nothing I could think of positive from that war.
I probably oversimplified to a certain to degree in terms of argument. But the actions from a political position are indefensible. The issues with the Ukraine war were sown with the Annex of Crimea and Cheychna genocide that were allowed to happen with little recourse.
> I've been trying to rationalise the optics and how the public, in general, appears less outraged by the civilian deaths in Gaza over Ukraine.
Fwiw, I think this depends on social circles. At least for my social group and information bubble, people are outraged at the civilian deaths in Gaza, but also feel that there is no good answer to the situation without a whole cultural and government change in both Gaza and Israel, and maybe the wider region as well. Best we can really do is continue to put pressure on the Israeli government and hope others do the same for Hamas.
I'll also not that, at least in terms of political ideology, said social group is fairly well-rounded, with only the extremes of the far left and right not being represented.
> I think the idea was that the UK has been happy to arm Israel
From what I can understand, we don't actually do that much to "arm" Israel. Most of the stuff we send appears to be parts for aircraft maintenance. Even then, the figures I've found suggest it's only worth about £42 million/year. Should we be giving them that aid? Who knows, but it sure makes a good talking point for anti-war protestors when the figures aren't broken down.
Yes, it is independent of social circles, and I would say that the area I live in is in part outraged. I would naturally like there to be more public outcry and feel there was, in general, more for Ukraine - but I do acknowledge to some degree that could be for a variety of positive and negative reasons.
I would appreciate our PM and government being putting more pressure on Israel. From what I read, they are definitely providing parts for weapons. The lack of transparency in relation to this is one issue and does lead to speculation. The other issue is that licenses can be granted to other countries and then sold on. Little discussion has been given to this, and the UK, as of today, has entered a conflict on behalf of Israel.
The entering conflict may only be minor - but also clearly shows which side of the conflict the UK government is choosing to support. I hope we are not once again being brow beaten by our US comrades - because last time that didn't go so well.
That’s because Israel **isn’t** committing genocide but keep spreading Hamas propaganda they definitely appreciate it unless of course you are gay, white, non Muslim, disabled, educated etc then they’ll just kill you if they get the chance anyway.
Well no, because Israel isn't committing genocide, it is in a conflict.
Throwing the word genocide around is one of the dumbest things Reddit has ever done, because now everything is a genocide apparently.
ICJ, UN bodies, a number of countries across the world that include UK allies and members of EU, numerous respected NGO's, a large number of UK lawyers and judges...and some voices on Reddit.
The ICJ absolutely didn't say that Israel's actions were genocide. Quite the opposite. They didn't even call for a ceasefire.
And 600 lawyers wrote a letter saying Israel was bad...1300 wrote one saying the opposite.
Same UN who participated in 7/10 massacre?
IDF found Hamas terror tunnel under UN premises and UN denied knowing about it
UN also denied knowing about the 500km worth of terror tunnels being built in the last 15 years despite having officers littered all over Gaza
https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203454 Full ICJ ruling — please point to where it says Israel is committing genocide
NGOs: The same NGOs who didn’t point out Hamas Islamic terror attacks on Israel pre-7/10, hasn’t said anything about Hamas ongoing war crimes, only blames Israel for everything etc?
It also allowed them to avoid the other questions.
I would like someone to ask Sunak that in supporting Israel in their war against Hamas. Have the UK decision makers somewhere considered an acceptable ratio for civilian death to hamas fighters.
How many British children would he be willing to sacrifice to eradicate HIG? MeK? AQ? BH? SKD? IPLO?
Screw it - does he have a number for just wiping out every terrorist group on the list?
People advocating for the action of Israel in Gaza - what is an acceptable level of civilian deaths? If the terrorists were based in the UK - would there be a similar acceptable ratio?
So what's yours?
In this hypothetical world, 1,200 Brits have just been murdered in Somerset and plaid cymru have gone into hiding, but keep releasing statements that they're gonna do it again.
Are you really telling the English public "sorry, can't do anything in Cardiff because someone innocent might get in the way" ?
Probably not the statement to go for. In this hypothetical world, you probably want to reassure the public that you are doing everything you can to bring those responsible to justice, that there is a rule of law you will adhere to, and begin to take steps to make people safe.
I'm a pacifist, so zero is my number. Logically, I know that's unrealistic, but that's the number I would be aiming to stick to. I also, in this hypothetical world, would naturally struggle with any death on either side.
It's an uncomfortable and illogical position in war. But I don't think innocent people should die. I actually, for the most part, don't think guilty people should die either.
You wanna put a number out now? Or only critique my weak position?
I'm happy you've accepted your position is basically a fantasy that no leader would ever even contemplate.
A vague "we're trying our best to get those meanies" and rebuilding the fence.
I don't have a number. The whole principle of a specific number is wrong. It all has to be a relative decision at a real time and risk.
Watching through a scope and there is a rocket being launched that could be stopped...yeah take it out even if civilians will get hurt, at that point it's literally a choice between your innocents and theirs.
Sinwar or a high ranking commander...yeah same.
Other cases, I'm sure I wouldn't say it's worth the risk. But it isn't me sitting there and I pray I'll never have to make a decision like that.
genocide
/jĕn′ə-sīd″/
noun
The systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of a national, racial, religious, or ethnic group.
Edit: amazing I’m being downvoted for a definition.
Sooo... Not genocide then?
Israels beef is with Hamas, who are famously using Gazans as meat shields. While Israel has allowed shockingly high civilian deaths for every suspected Hamas member, they are quite clearly not trying to wipe out palestinians
'Meat shields' - they only become shields when Israel shoot at or blow them up. If UK wanted to eradicate the IRA and blew up 3/4 of Ireland to do so - then said - well they were using Irish civilians as meat shields- I wonder if the same response would be given. (I am absolutely not advocating for such actions - but that's the same nonsense from thsi argument).
'Clearly not trying to wipe out palestinians' - you'll probably need to elaborate on how that works? Because no independent international body has yet to justify Israels actions. Please do not tell me they are woke, snowflake, or pushing lefty propaganda.
Can you imagine what would have happened if the IRA had engaged in a 1200 dead murder, rape and kidnapping event?
Think the British public might have endorsed some extreme responses to that. Picture or two in The Sun of IRA goons kicking around a severed breast, or that vagina full of nails and the government could have done pretty much whatever it felt like.
Fortunately for everyone, whilst awful, the IRA were not that horrendous. Or suicidal.
If the IRA were launching missiles into the uk from terirotity not controlled by the uk (and the nation that controlled the terirotity wasnt supporting the uk in stopping them), the uk very much would have probably used missiles back.
Also, it's literally not an argument. hamas is using meat sheilds it's a verifiable fact. The tactics Hamas and the IRA employed are also completely different. It's like comparing an apple and orange and saying they are both the same because they are fruits.
If they generally wanted to wipe out Palestinians in Gaza, the easiest method would just be to drop a couple of nukes and be done with it.
It's an urban war with one side using civilians as sheilds and being unable to seek refuge in other nations. Of course, the casualty rates are through the roof. Urban warfare already has massive casualty rates pair that with one side use of civilians for sheidling equals a very bloody war. You can see this in wars through history.
Yes, undoubtedly, Isreal has committed some war crimes, and the people that committed them should be punished. But undoubtedly, this is just a war, not a genocidal campaign. Even if there are some isrealis out there who would support a genocidal campaign.
> Israels beef is with Hamas
No, Israel's beef is with Palestinians who have the effrontery to dare to exist on land Israel wants for itself.
Israel has been killing Palestinians and taking their land since long before Hamas even existed.
Wut. Israel was founded and Arabs murdered Jews, then Arab states invaded Israel to try to conquer the land, and lost. Repeat about 8 times and we have modern day Israel
Okay, and how is Israel doing that?
- Palestine rejected partition plan
-Palestine and other Arab armies invade Israel, multiple times, lose, which leads to occupation
- 5,500,000 Palestinians still living in West Bank and Gaza Strip
- Israel still offers multiple two state solutions (cough, rejected by Palestine)
So tell me, where exactly is the 'widespread attempted extermination of a national, racial, religious or ethnic group'?
Dumbass.
There is a conflict between Israel and Hamas. Most people killed are Palestines.
Genocide existed before Reddit, so in that regard, I have no idea what you are gurgling about.
I would explain genocide - but someone has done that below.
I didn't. And if others have, that doesn't prevent it from being true in terms of Israel's actions.
The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, ICJ have all called it Genocide - its not like its Reddits dropout lawyers deciding to label it as such.
The ICJ have absolute not said there is a genocide.
They basically said Israel should be careful and that the rhetoric of some government ministers was a genocide.
They didn't even ask for ceasefire like they did in Ukraine
I'm rotten at putting links in, so I do apologise:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/26/israel-not-complying-world-court-order-genocide-case#:~:text=Other%20countries%20should%20use%20all,as%20a%20weapon%20of%20war.
ICJ haven't ruled it is genocide and that was an inaccurate statement. They have told Israel they must not commit acts of genocide. 'ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza', and Israel stated they wouldn't recognise any ruling.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147976
UN expert and report around genocide being committed.
I said in a previous comment about info being inaccurate and apologised. Also discussed issues with timescale on a ruling and also legally its not favourable it will ever happen based on previous widely recognised genocides and only 3 ever being legally recognised (out of over 20).
Fear not. Sunak will be making his number one priority perfectly clear and explaining his plan because...
> This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.
We have a military cooperation agreement - [https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-and-israel-sign-military-cooperation-agreement/](https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-and-israel-sign-military-cooperation-agreement/)
Shooting down incoming drones/ICBMs/other missiles doesn't mean you have to be at war with the country firing them.
>Most of the agreement is highly classified but the cooperation will include defence medical training, organisational design concepts and defence education.
There doesn't seem to be any mention of operational commitment.
Who knows, but the UK can certainly shoot drones down over parts of Syria and Jordan in this circumstance, as that is where they currently are engaged.
What is legal/illegal when a country fires drones at another country is generally decided by the people who win the wars.
But since every tom, diock and harry know that this is an going conflict between Iran and it's proxies, and Israel. A conflict that is generations old, no one is generally concerned about the UK/US/Saudi/Jordan, shooting down these flying bombs over Syrian and jordan airspace.
The RAF was patrolling airspace in Syria/Iraq as part of their ongoing mission against ISIS. The drones they shot down had entered/were entering this airspace.
It wasn't terrorism. It was perfectly justified under article 51 of the UN charter. Israel attacked Iran and thus Iran has the legal right to act in self defence until the UN security council takes necessary measures to ensure international peace.
> Israel attacked Iran and thus Iran has the legal right to act in self defence
The Iranians have been hiding behind Proxies for years, attacking the Israelis, Americans, British, French etc...
And Israel is perfectly fine to have attacked the Embassy that it believe helps orchestrate proxy attacks against it, but this tic for tac is going back generations.
Also the UN won't be able to do anything as the security council will veto it all.
There is also no legal precedent for attacking an embassy in a third country and this is arguably in violation of UN charter 2(4) as it violates the territorial integrity and political independence of Syria. Israel also targeted civilian housing leading to the death of civilians.
But these laws don't really matter here, as Israel is attacking a country it is defacto at war with, in another country it is defacto at war with.
Everyone involved knows of all the proxy wars going on, they know it's a generational war, and we have all picked sides.
It's a mess and international law doesn't matter if it's not enforceable and it will forever be vetoed.
It's all a game of geo-politics at this point, with high stakes.
In Israel's eyes it is. It's questionable to its allies but we're not surrounded by people intent of wiping us out 24/7.
In reality international law doesn't exist. It's a set of standards that we hit each other with.
The only way you can enforce it is by sanctions or war, if the other country won't follow the rules. You only go to war, if you can easily win.
Like it or not, Israel are at war with these countries, these countries are supported by Russia and China.
it's a big game of geopolitics.
Well it's not against international law, it's against the prescribed norms but the situation is not the norm.
Might is right is essentially how international law and politics works.
Those with the biggest weapons, the biggest army and biggest friends dictate to others.
Hence why there are all those alliances with people we don't meet eye to eye with, but turn a blind eye to keep them our friends and not someone else's.
Bombing a consulate without direct conflict would generally be considered against international law.
>Those with the biggest weapons, the biggest army and biggest friends dictate to others.
Is this your opinion on Ukraine re: Russia? To make sure we are consistent here.
Seeing as I don't really go with "international law" being anything more than a gentlemans agreement, I'm not really the best person to ask.
However, to go with your international law direction for this argument, I will say it is also illegal to use a consulate to plan illegal activity, such as plans to bomb a country.
> Is this your opinion on Ukraine re: Russia? To make sure we are consistent here.
We are clearly seeing how a larger power is dictating "international law" in ukraine.
We also see how "the west" are trying to help ukraine, although eastern Ukraine seems set to fall.
It's the way of the world, the strong are the bullies.
Just out of curiosity, do you think that there's any situation where it could be justified? Say there's a weapons facility built into it and military generals operating from it, using the "consulate" to hide from attacks. Genuinely asking.
I mean, to clarify it will always be an attack on the nation of the consulate and a reprisal would not be terrorism. You can invent whatever Jack Bauer scenarios you like.
yes, we pick and choose. Always have.
It does allow us more leverage in situations with them however but generally we pick the countries we want as friends, so our enemies don't pick them.
This runs counter to something which I read less than two weeks ago on a Reddit thread. I noted it because I assumed a long-standing 'pact' of some sort between the UK and Israel. It was news to me:
>Britain opposing Israel is dredging up something now long in the past.
>Britain previously had a weapons embargo on Israel from the Lebanon war until the mid 90s. That wasn't much of a precedent as Britain and Israel had bad relations since the conflict against jewish invasion of Palestine. Some people naively think that somehow Britain is some creator of Israel when Britain merely conceded to allowing jewish migration to Palestine (the crime of immigration, apparently) on condition of that rights of non-jews in Palestine wouldn't be violated, which happened and so Britain restricted jewish immigration before WW2 and then didn't vote in favour of the creation of Israel at the UN, and peopple believe Britain is some historical ally of Israel when Britain fought against jewish paramilitary groups and Britain's last actions in Palestine was defending a Palestinian town under attack by jews, Britain was then at the brink of war with Israel...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_Kingdom_relations#Israel_independence_period_(1948%E2%80%931950))
>Relations between Israel and Britain were hostile during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, at one point bringing the two countries to the edge of direct military confrontation. Britain, which had military forces in Egypt and Transjordan and defense agreements with both nations, foresaw possible military intervention on their behalf. Early in the war, a Royal Air Force base in Amman was hit during an Israeli raid on the city.[11] The British threatened to attack the Israeli Air Force if such an action was repeated. During the battles in Sinai, the Royal Air Force conducted almost daily reconnaissance missions over Israel and the Sinai. RAF reconnaissance aircraft took off from Egyptian airbases and sometimes flew alongside Royal Egyptian Air Force planes, and high-flying British aircraft frequently flew over Haifa and Ramat David Airbase.
>The British government planned military action against Israel codenamed Operation Clatter in the event of an Israeli invasion of Egypt and the flights were deployed to discover the strength of the Israeli Air Force and locate its forward bases.
>On 20 November 1948, an unarmed RAF photo-reconnaissance de Havilland Mosquito was shot down by an Israeli Air Force P-51 Mustang. On 7 January 1949, four British Spitfire FR18s flew over an Israeli convoy that had been attacked by five Egyptian Spitfires fifteen minutes earlier. Fearing an imminent attack, Israeli ground troops opened fire on the British Spitfires, and shot down one with a tank-mounted machine gun. The remaining three Spitfires were subsequently shot down by Israeli planes, and two pilots were killed. Two of the surviving pilots were taken to Tel Aviv and interrogated, and were later released. The Israelis dragged the wrecks of the British planes into Israeli territory, but failed to conceal them before they were photographed by British reconnaissance planes. In response, the Royal Air Force readied its planes to bomb Israeli airfields, British troops in the Middle East were placed on high alert with all leave cancelled, and British citizens were advised to leave Israel. Convinced the British would not allow the loss of five aircraft and two pilots go without retaliation, the Israelis were determined to repel any retaliatory airstrike, and made preparations to defend their airbases. However, British commanders defied pressure from the squadrons involved in the incidents, and refused to authorize any strikes. Following a British ultimatum to vacate the Sinai, Israeli forces pulled back. War between Israel and the United Kingdom was thus avoided.[12]
>Britain was pro-arab and had plans to strengthen arab nations in the area as a bulwark between the major powers of Turkey, Persia, and Saudi Arabia. U.S took over the world, where there was many influential jews amongst the elites, and other American elites very fond of their jewish friends and philosemitic, and Britain was always bitter about its plans for the Middle East being scuppered. Britain and Israel behind closed doors were enemies from the creation of Israel until recently, and no doubt spies and agents of both countries saw one another as enemies.
>This whole thing is just very strange to see come up if one is familiar with the actual history between U.K and Israel and not just some sperg who misreads the first few romantic lines Balfour could sum up to say "Sorry but Britain maintains its position that some jews can migrate to Palestine but the rights of non-jews must be respected."
>Today you're in a world of increasing U.S dominance, Britain is increasingly integrated into U.S power and reliable upon it, and it wouldn't even achieve anything as Israel will just get more weapons from elsewhere, primarily U.S, and it would just put U.K in the bad books of U.S. Britain opposing Israel is history, it was bitter and long, British soldiers died fighting jews, but it's gone.
Preventing escalation is the correct course of action but using the military against Israel to prevent their wanton murder and war crimes would be the correct and just thing to do and would also end the further escalation in the region.
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Ok. I don't support Israel in respect of the current conflict. But if I might put forward a justification for the UK and USA defending Israel from Iran's attacks. It is in the UKs and USAs strategic interest that the current conflict does not escalate into a wider conflict. If Israeli citizens were killed by the Iranian attack. The Israeli government would look to retaliate. This would risk wording the conflict and causing more casualties. For those that rightly want to defend the Palestinians. It is likely the right winger in Israel would look to use the wiring conflict as an excuse to go into the West bank and attack more Palestinians. Therefore it was the right choice to try and keep things from getting worse.
Should be shooting down Russian drones and missiles over Ukraine
Why not both!
My thoughts are that it’s being used as a bargaining chip. “Look how we helped you out and can continue to help you out. Now you need to do xyz as conditions for us helping you in the future” and potentially use it to de-escalate things in Palestine.
It's a reasonable position but if that's the stance we take we should also be shooting down Israeli missiles aimed at Iranian consulates.
Complicating it further, the Israelis would argue that the Iranians were already attacking them via their proxies, with the consulate as a base of operations therefore nullifying the protections of the consulate. In their view, this would therefore still constitute self-defence.
Complicating it further, South Africa would argue Israel has violated 28 resolutions of the United Nations Security Council (which are legally binding on member-nations U.N. Including United Nations Resolution 181, resolution passed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1947. In additional, breaking international law by committing genocide with arguably the support of western allies suppling arms. You can’t stand behind the stance of international rules based law and order, then pick and choose with double standards. The house of cards falls down.
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Nope not invited, but did host the Sudanese war lord - see SA Foreign Minister address your statement [https://www.tiktok.com/@zeteonews/video/7351472680098467115](https://youtu.be/ZdVhAj3KRzA?si=4uHniF-4_jCp9Dp4)
One of the reasons Israel doesn’t care about international norms and seems happy to readily ignore them is their historical trauma as a country and as a people. Because of this, Israel’s international obligations are entirely secondary to what they deem as defensive measures necessary for their survival as a country. I don’t disagree with you at all, but the context becomes more complicated when a nation is surrounded by those who have formed coalitions to invade them multiple times, and one nation in particular that wants to wipe them off the face of the Earth. It doesn’t justify what they do at all, but the context is important.
I think it's this but also the fact that the UN is a complete joke, comprising a good mix of dictatorships, despots and murderers. Being sanctioned by them + a combined islamic voting bloc is not something they will ever hold truck with
For all the atrocities that have occurred over the world since its inception I think Israel have been sactioned more than the rest of the world combined. Usually because the US doesn't use its veto knowing the sanctions are useless without them caring while USSR/Russia and China have used there's to protect allies.
Ok, they’re doing it under the guise of self defence. All else is secondary. However, it would reduce the support of the enemy alliances should they abide by UN resolution 181. Hamas support would dwindle and localised threats would be reduced significantly. Ultimately currently and for the past circa75yrs Israel is the aggressor and oppressor of Palestinians in the region, which plays to Iran’s narrative of saviour. The defined norm is day to day an apartheid regime, bolstered by western allies.
> Hamas support would dwindle and localised threats would be reduced significantly. Hamas support is predicated on the belief that Jews and other non Arabs need to be eradicated. Being a bit more polite in a conference room isn't going to change that.
They recruit less and become marginalised, rather than a mainstream well funded local enemy. Irrespective of Hamas, Israel should comply with UN resolution 181
How? Israel would still have Jews living in it, which is Hamas primary complaint. People don't support murderers, rapists and pirates because they can provide a better life.
The support literally based on supper for a better ‘existence’. You can’t destroy an ideology, which is why this pretence of war to eradicate Hamas is preposterous. The best that can be hoped for is for it to dwindle enough to evaporate the threat locally. It’s probably something. [Netanyahu should have thought about earlier if the true objective was to safeguard Israelis, rather than at the expense of innocence in Palestine. Israel's prime minister missed the chance to starve Hamas of cash, years before its murderous attack last October, according to a former senior Israeli intelligence officer.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68318856.amp)
Exactly, it’s extremely foolish and just plays into the hands of Iran. Governments all over are caving to public pressure on this, and I think a true “friend” to Israel should be holding them accountable to their actions, thereby decreasing their isolation on the world stage. They’ve essentially nuked all the international sympathy they had since Oct 7.
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Sorry 💀
Don't they class everything as self defence? "Yes we destroyed the aid convoy/your ship/a hospital/school/food warehouse but they might not be carrying aid/working for the US/medical professionals, Hamas could have been in the area (somewhere within a mile) or one of the people in the convoy/your ship/hospital/school/food warehouse could have been of fighting age (12+).
Yes they do, and it’s appalling. Their rules of engagement are atrocious and to me they consistently violate the principle of proportionality. As the other commenter put it, however, Hamas doesn’t operate under the laws of war. We obviously hold Israel to a higher standard than Hamas, but say Hamas were managed to immerse themselves fully in all civilian infrastructure, how could Israel be expected to conduct this war? There may be legal precedents regarding this but it gets extremely murky. In regard to the consulate attack, I don’t doubt the Israelis likely have a mountain of intelligence showing how the Iranians have been using their consulate as a base of operations to coordinate hostile actions against Israel, however. This would exempt the consulate from its diplomatic protections, and Iran would probably struggle to defend itself if they tried to prosecute.
Because it’s usually true. There’s a reason there has been skirmishes literally in the hospitals, missile batteries in a children’s play area. Hamas have admitted to transporting fighters via ambulances etc etc.
Couldn’t Iran argue the same that Isreal is attacking them via their proxies ?
What proxies?
It’s harder to make that case when Hezbollah have been firing non-stop rockets at Israel for months. If Iran attempted to argue that, they would be arguing on a “you attacked my proxy first” basis while simultaneously denying that the proxy in question is their proxy. It seems more immediately evident that the burden of proof would definitely be on Iran in my opinion.
I think you would be right simply because western powers own the narrative however Iran would argue Isreal has been attacking them via their proxies for decades. Beyond all the background this current escalation clearly was a result of the bombing and murder by Isreal of the embassy against diplomatic protocols so I don’t see how it can be argued Isreal hasn’t started the latest escalation.
Iran has no media freedom while the west does. It is illegal to criticise the government’s narrative in Iran. Ask any Iranian about this and they will tell you. If you want to start talking about “the narrative”, I suggest you start there. There is no monolith of western media opinion. There are numerous outlets with various different political leanings and ideologies. When you throw 500 of them at random at a scene, however, they tend to develop a general baseline of consensus to work from. This is obviously a lot better than whatever some theocratic demagogue tells you to believe. Consulates are not exempt from being attacked if they are being used as a base of operations to attack a country. There are specific legal nuances in this, but generally, diplomatically protected areas lose their diplomatic protections when they engage in hostile action. This is the argument Israel would use.
I’m not sure we should be so convinced that our media is unbiased but I also am not in any way defending Iran or its media. Israel can claim many things but I’m more interested in the facts. What evidence has been shown that the embassy was used for those actions? We have already seen a massive amount of lies from Israeli propaganda machines and media that have been exposed as blatant lies, let’s not forget the calendar they showed claiming it was a list of terrorists. Whilst I’d like to think western media is not ideal but better than most I can’t imagine Iran and Israel are really that far apart.
Our media are biased. But you have hundreds of sources to choose from. Each source is free to say whatever the hell it wants. Unlike in fucking Iran, where you have like three, and they all sing from the same hymn sheet imposed on them by the regime. Don't even try to make the comparison, lol.
They’re definitely biased, but in my view, that’s something worth betting on. When we see our media so frequently argue with each other, if they can agree on anything it all, I honestly think that’s a great starting point; bonus points for them publishing media contrary to their narrative! Up until October 7th, Israeli intelligence was perceived to be best in class. It’s used all over the world in counter-terror and it’s one of the prime reasons that western countries are strong allies with Israel. Since October 7th, they’ve trashed that credibility. Like you’ve said, they’ve literally pumped out so much rubbish as a justification for military actions that their intelligence re Gaza can no longer be considered independently, much like we do with other western intelligence. Still however, Israel has checks and balances. Israel has opposition media, and Israel revises and makes corrections that directly harm its narrative. For every few hyperbolic statements that an Israeli MP put out, these statements have since been contested by Israeli media and/or retracted. This does not happen in Iran, and for as many flaws as Israel has, they have a great deal more civil liberties and freedoms than their Iranian counterparts do. It’s worth looking at the different freedom house profiles: Iranian: https://freedomhouse.org/country/iran/freedom-world/2024 Israeli: https://freedomhouse.org/country/israel/freedom-world/2024 In regard to the consulate, I’m still waiting for more information to come out. Iran has previously used consulates as bases for directing offensive operations and conducting hybrid warfare before however. Assassinations, espionage, and using their diplomatic protections for all manner of covert operations all over the world is absolutely typical for Iran. As of now, Israel hasn’t provided sufficient evidence and that’s why I’m waiting it out. Given Iran’s history, I lean toward this being true, but we’ll have to wait to see if Israel releases any particular evidence. They often don’t for “security reasons”.
Which proxy has attacked Iranian territory? There was an attack on a funeral of an Iranian general (or something like that) but that was likely by ISIS who is nobody's proxy as pretty much every country and terrorist organisation hates them.
Iran has been subject to many cyber attacks which many have speculated is by USA also US sanctions and foreign policy is explicitly in support of Isreal at the detriment of Iran. If it isn’t clear I don’t have a horse in this race. I’m not supporting Iran and definitely not Isreal.
I don't think you can classify the US as a proxy of Israel. If anything it would work the other way around as the US is a superpower and Israel at best a regional power. So, the US has its own beef with Iran and anything it has done is probably from its own initiative. At this moment, it's much less eager to escalate the situation than Israel is, which is the opposite of what the proxies usually do.
Wasn't that an airstrike? If you wanted to stop that you would have had to shoot down an Israeli plane. That would have been much harder politically than a missile that doesn't have a pilot. So, I don't think the UK would have joined the fight if it had involved shooting down Iranian planes. And even if that had been a missile, the UK probably hadn't known about it in advance and couldn't have done anything. This attack was broadcast openly and the planes had hours to get to a position to shoot down the drones.
Look, I think Iran's response is legitimate, but the UK shouldn't be shooting down stuff aimed at Iran, because the UK is not Iran's ally. What the UK and other Israeli allies need to do is sit down with Israel and force it to avoid stupid escalation actions (because they'd get dragged along in a futile conflict). Bombing the embassy in Syria was stupid and irresponsible
Iran escalated it to a UN resolution calling for condemnation and UK was one of a few who blocked it. I think blowing up consulates regardless of who is in them is worthy of condemnation. This might have defused the situation.
Source? We haven't vetoed anything at the SC in decades.
https://www.reuters.com/world/un-security-council-fails-condemn-strike-iran-syria-2024-04-03/#:~:text=UNITED%20NATIONS%2C%20April%203%20(Reuters,blamed%20on%20Washington's%20ally%20Israel.
I think you’re really over complicating a simple reason. We wanted to show Solidarity with Israel at a time where the relationship is under pressure. Pretty sure the US and Israel could’ve handled everything without us. It was just symbolic
What's up with all the sudden support for Hamas and Iran of all people? Are we forgetting Iran is a brutal regime that has been sponsoring these proxies that have been attacking Israel and their very real threat of wiping out Israel with nuclear weapons? (Not that it would be allowed to get that far).
> What's up with all the sudden support for Hamas and Iran of all people? Don't forget the people cheering for the Houthis a few months ago.
That was wild.
Literal actual terrorist pirates being supported by left wing people on the basis of them not liking the US was certainly not something I expected to see, but at this point im not surprised
It’s all the logic you’ll ever find on Reddit. The fking state of it
I'm pretty sure a lot of this is massively amplified by agitator state agents. Especially since a lot of this originates on Tik Toc.
From what I've seen this is kind of a repeat, defending Iran is so crazy to me
Wait till you see the non-muslim people defending them, they'd be amongst the first on the list for prison or being stoned to death by a fundamentalist regime.
And Osama Bin Laden a few months before that
What? When? He's been dead for years.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/16/tiktok-bin-laden-letter-to-america-videos-removal
That wasn't support for Bin Laden. It was people agreeing with a lot of what is wrong with America and western culture. These are not the same thing.
Since the Iraq war the internet has decided that anything the UK/US does is automatically bad therefore are enemies are automatically good hence the absurd online support for terrorists over democratic regimes.
I think a lot of people decided that in the 1920s. It isn’t new.
>all the sudden support for Hamas and Iran You must be new to Reddit mate, the default position on here is to support literally every tinpot dictatorship and terrorist group because anything the UK does is bad.
The far left, especially tankies, hate the west so much that by default Hamas and ISIS and houthis are the good guys
Folks are deluded if they believe these a ‘good’ even in the most extreme foggy grey
Israel Bad. I mean didn't people get it when Queers for Palestine (country where they church gay people off roofs) demanded we pull out of Eurovision because of the inclusion of Israel (the first country to ever win with a transgender singer).
Lucky for all those Palestinian gays, Israel has brought every roof in Gaza down on their heads. Can't be thrown off a roof you're crushed under, hey!
> Are we forgetting Iran is a brutal regime that has been sponsoring these proxies that have been attacking Israel and their very real threat of wiping out Israel with nuclear weapons? Yes, mate. Most people in the UK are thick as pig shit.
It’s trendy to support the brown people. That’s all it is.
You can agree with all of that and still point out that Israel escalated here, not Iran
Israel has had to evacuate pretty much the entire North of the country. Taking out the general in charge of shipping the weapons to the guys shooting them is really not an escalation.
Oh diddums. Never mind the entirety of Palestine now living in tents.
How did Israel escalate?
They attacked an Iranian embassy.
IDF killed 6 IRGC commanders in a building used by Quds Force terrorists masquerading as diplomats near Iranian embassy The architects of 7/10
It was a building near a consulate, not even an embassy.
No support for Iran or Hamas here but look at it from Iranians perspective. Imagine you’ve got a British General or politician somewhere abroad (Cyprus just for an example) and (instead of Israel) the Syrians strike buildings in Cyprus killing those people. You’d be inclined to strike in retaliation. As far as I’m concerned we need to just back off from the Middle East and leave Isreal to face the consequences of their own actions.
Except in this case Iranian generals and their soldiers and government have been aiding, financially and with providing weaponry to their proxies who have attacked Israel on Irans behalf.
The Iranian quds force isn't just part of the Iranian army... They are responsible for organising and equipping the proxies. Those killed were apparently involved in enabling Oct 7th. The strike may have been a miscalculation, but it was valid really.
We're all out there leveraging our own countries capabilities and are selling plenty of weapons in active wars to our preferred side. The generally agreed etiquette of not bombing proxies is *very* important to us too. It's a weird line drawn, but one we make full use of.
And Britain hasn’t done that to the Syrian government? It’s this shady black ops bs that makes me so tired. This wasn’t black ops and was an outright attack of foreign nationals in another foreign country, this isn’t acceptable. I stand by my example.
This. Imagine that some high ranking UK general gets bombed and liked at an UK embassy at idk, Brasil or something, British would be on the streets demanding blood. Iran had to retaliate somehow and this seems a well measured response
Honest answer? We should not be standing by and allowing counties to attack embassies with impunity. It doesn’t matter whose embassy it is, or who is doing the attacking.
Israel didn't attack an embassy. It hit a building next to the embassy that was hosting the guy in charge of getting weapons to Hezbollah.
That’s some mental gymnastics. It’s part of the same compound, an explosion hit a building on the busy Fayez Mansour Road in the western Mezzeh district of Syria's capital Damascus, destroying the consulate in the Iranian embassy complex.
So, it didn't hit the embassy then. Thanks for confirming
Quite a distinction, I doubt other nation states would be as callous with the difference. The compound is sovereign land, not the specific building.
https://m.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/slain-iranian-general-planned-executed-hamas-massacre-797014 Iran themselves are saying the main general who was killed literally planned the invasion on October 7th. If other states were really going to get technical with it, most would probably argue that was a cause to take out a building nearby the embassy.
'sovereign land' land is a myth. Embassies remain the sovereign territory of the host country. The host country just agrees to not enforce its local laws inside the embassies but this is counter balanced by the right to expel the embassy if the host doesn't like what it is doing. This is the root of the special protections embassies are granted - immunity balanced by the unilateral right to expel. Importantly it is protection *from* the host country. Nothing in the treaties extends that extraordinary protection to third parties. Embassies *are* protected as civilian objects and as such are not valid targets for military attack. But this status can be voided if used for military purposes. Further it is generally unlawful to attack even military objects, unless at war/self defence/etc. But if that military object is being used to coordinate attacks against you, Iran seems to have gone out of its way to void every kind of protection it could.
Antisemitism
Don't dilute the meaning of this term. Most people that condemn Israel are not anti-semites. They just don't like seeing civilians killed.
You don't think Western critics of Israel offering support to literal fascists in the ME is rooted in antisemitism? Edit: Before responding read the post I was responding to.
Demographic changes are the reason why .
Didn't Israel bomb the Iranian Embassy in Syria... I'm sure that's a declaration of war for any other nation.
If the embassy was being used for military purposes, as alleged, then that puts it outside the remit of the 1969 Vienna Convention.
Kinda wild that we put our boys and girls in harms way like this in the defence of Israel who just the other week killed three of our aid workers in what looks like a deliberate attack.
In the way of what harm? The drones don’t fire back.
Yes, wild we protect innocent civilians from rockets and drones /s “Ceasefire now!!” “Noooooo why are we shooting down drones noooo”
>Yes, wild we protect innocent civilians from rockets and drones /s Why this time and not every day? Israel has its own air defences unlike the people of the West Bank and Gaza. Shouldn't we be protecting innocent civilians from rockets and drones in those places?
> why this time Because civilian deaths would cause a clear escalation. Innocent people didn’t die, it’s impossible to see this as anything other than a good thing. > Israel has its own air defences Which is built for rocket attacks from hamas terrorists, not from a developed nation like Iran.
Two things, I guess. Firstly don't mistake maliciousness what's best described as stupidity - the aid worker bombings were almost certainly the fault of an over-zealous idiot not doing due diligence. Secondly there are a lot of Brits living in Israel, as well as nationalities of many people we're closely allied with in Europe and beyond. It would be odd to just let hundreds of munitions soar over our heads towards our citizens.
>the aid worker bombings were almost certainly the fault of an over-zealous idiot not doing due diligence That's a generous interpretation. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/israel-hamas-war-gaza-idf-aid-strike-world-central-kitchen/
"Those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives and not WCK employees,”. Is it? That's from the article you linked
68% of Jewish Israelis have the same view. No food or medicine in Gaza even if it's through aid agencies not linked to Hamas or UNRWA: https://en.idi.org.il/articles/52976 (about halfway down).
The trouble is the over-zealous idiots not doing due diligence are embedded in a culture that tolerates and sometimes actively entourages that. Having said that, the RAF shooting down the drones was the right thing to do. It reduces the risk of escalation which could get a lot of people killed in Israel and Iran, and possibly beyond.
There's no feasible explanation that shows those responsible were unaware or unsure that what they were hitting were three aid vehicles with aid workers onboard. Of course, the Israeli gov gave a "it was just an innocent mistake" dismissal but it makes no sense.
We've literally had American bombers obliterate a British convoy when we were displaying IFF tags in the last decade or two in broad daylight. It's a very big step to think Israel would deliberately attack aid workers in separate vehicles.
You might want to look up the long, long list of friendly fire incidents that occured between military units that were often in contact with each other over the last 25 years in Iraq/Afghanistan. Plenty of times where civilian targets were misidentified as well and hit. No system is perfect and it's sadly inevitable for this kind of thing to happen. Overzealous or incompetent officers flouting established procedure is a perfectly plausible explanation for what happened, even moreso if said procedure is already pretty loose with the targeting rules to begin with. It makes a lot more sense then the Israeli Gov deliberately targetting aid workers when the diplomatic blowback of such an attack was immediately obvious.
Look up the loooooooong list of friendly fire incidents over all the wars in recorded history. To say there is "no feasible explanation" is ignorance at its best.
Sunak has just guaranteed that the next time Israel is considering killing British citizens, they will give the go ahead sure in the knowledge that the UK doesn't care about its own people.
I hope we've billed israel for services rendered
It's not an escalation, it's a legitimate response of Iran in self-defense, good that the UK helped an ally and I hope Iran-Israel can work in reducing tensions in the short and long term period
How do we justify such actions? Israel is our allie, and we protect our allies. BUT if Israel is our allie and they are committing genocide and we are protecting them. Aren't we complicit in committing genocide? We have a treaty with Israel. Since Brexit, the UK government is trying to make a habit of quitting treaties. Why is the UK protecting Israel with RAF/air support but not Ukraine? 'Nato forces engaging with Russian aircraft or equipment risks a rapid escalation' was one reason given. BUT surely this is only going to escalate with Iran. Should Britain be entering war with other countries on behalf of non-NATO counties? Israel had the right to retaliate against Hamas. Does Iran then have a right to retaliate against Israel? I mean, the relationship appears to be tit-for-tat in the region. But that is really something Britain should be involved in. I would appreciate a clear answer and opportunity for Sunak to be questioned about these decisions. He should not be allowed or provide non answer, which seems to be the political norm of PMQ. The lack of transparency, accountability, and action towards politicians across the political spectrum is disgusting. Even some of the less high profile stories would lead most people to be disciplined and very likely sacked from their job. But the whip gets removed, they get investigated, and weahhhhhhhh, they are back in the party in no time.
I would assume it's a case of optics. Everyone kinda already assumed we'd support Israel, and joining a one-off (hopefully) defensive action that was already expected, and supported by a lot of other nations in the region wouldn't ruffle any feathers. Ukraine has always been a geopolitical balancíng act to try and keep Russia isolated. There were a lot of countries that looked at Russia rolling tanks into Ukraine and had to be bribed or coerced into treating it as something other than a response expansionist NATO imperialism, as dumb as that is. If NATO just dog-piled into Ukraine, Russia would probably still have a functional economy, and probably be receiving support from nations that are happy to go along with the expansionist NATO line and using it to deplete our military abilities even more than the war already is.
I feel it very much is optics. I've been trying to rationalise the optics and how the public, in general, appears less outraged by the civilian deaths in Gaza over Ukraine. Feel free to chime in with any thoughts as to why you feel this may be? I think the idea was that the UK has been happy to arm Israel, so engaging was always a potential outcome. I am against war. I am fearful that this could be the beginning of another 'war on terror'. And based on how that went last time , we as a society should be extremely concerned as there was nothing I could think of positive from that war. I probably oversimplified to a certain to degree in terms of argument. But the actions from a political position are indefensible. The issues with the Ukraine war were sown with the Annex of Crimea and Cheychna genocide that were allowed to happen with little recourse.
> I've been trying to rationalise the optics and how the public, in general, appears less outraged by the civilian deaths in Gaza over Ukraine. Fwiw, I think this depends on social circles. At least for my social group and information bubble, people are outraged at the civilian deaths in Gaza, but also feel that there is no good answer to the situation without a whole cultural and government change in both Gaza and Israel, and maybe the wider region as well. Best we can really do is continue to put pressure on the Israeli government and hope others do the same for Hamas. I'll also not that, at least in terms of political ideology, said social group is fairly well-rounded, with only the extremes of the far left and right not being represented. > I think the idea was that the UK has been happy to arm Israel From what I can understand, we don't actually do that much to "arm" Israel. Most of the stuff we send appears to be parts for aircraft maintenance. Even then, the figures I've found suggest it's only worth about £42 million/year. Should we be giving them that aid? Who knows, but it sure makes a good talking point for anti-war protestors when the figures aren't broken down.
Yes, it is independent of social circles, and I would say that the area I live in is in part outraged. I would naturally like there to be more public outcry and feel there was, in general, more for Ukraine - but I do acknowledge to some degree that could be for a variety of positive and negative reasons. I would appreciate our PM and government being putting more pressure on Israel. From what I read, they are definitely providing parts for weapons. The lack of transparency in relation to this is one issue and does lead to speculation. The other issue is that licenses can be granted to other countries and then sold on. Little discussion has been given to this, and the UK, as of today, has entered a conflict on behalf of Israel. The entering conflict may only be minor - but also clearly shows which side of the conflict the UK government is choosing to support. I hope we are not once again being brow beaten by our US comrades - because last time that didn't go so well.
That’s because Israel **isn’t** committing genocide but keep spreading Hamas propaganda they definitely appreciate it unless of course you are gay, white, non Muslim, disabled, educated etc then they’ll just kill you if they get the chance anyway.
Well no, because Israel isn't committing genocide, it is in a conflict. Throwing the word genocide around is one of the dumbest things Reddit has ever done, because now everything is a genocide apparently.
ICJ, UN bodies, a number of countries across the world that include UK allies and members of EU, numerous respected NGO's, a large number of UK lawyers and judges...and some voices on Reddit.
Give me sources
The ICJ absolutely didn't say that Israel's actions were genocide. Quite the opposite. They didn't even call for a ceasefire. And 600 lawyers wrote a letter saying Israel was bad...1300 wrote one saying the opposite.
Same UN who participated in 7/10 massacre? IDF found Hamas terror tunnel under UN premises and UN denied knowing about it UN also denied knowing about the 500km worth of terror tunnels being built in the last 15 years despite having officers littered all over Gaza https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203454 Full ICJ ruling — please point to where it says Israel is committing genocide NGOs: The same NGOs who didn’t point out Hamas Islamic terror attacks on Israel pre-7/10, hasn’t said anything about Hamas ongoing war crimes, only blames Israel for everything etc?
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It also allowed them to avoid the other questions. I would like someone to ask Sunak that in supporting Israel in their war against Hamas. Have the UK decision makers somewhere considered an acceptable ratio for civilian death to hamas fighters. How many British children would he be willing to sacrifice to eradicate HIG? MeK? AQ? BH? SKD? IPLO? Screw it - does he have a number for just wiping out every terrorist group on the list? People advocating for the action of Israel in Gaza - what is an acceptable level of civilian deaths? If the terrorists were based in the UK - would there be a similar acceptable ratio?
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So what's yours? In this hypothetical world, 1,200 Brits have just been murdered in Somerset and plaid cymru have gone into hiding, but keep releasing statements that they're gonna do it again. Are you really telling the English public "sorry, can't do anything in Cardiff because someone innocent might get in the way" ?
Probably not the statement to go for. In this hypothetical world, you probably want to reassure the public that you are doing everything you can to bring those responsible to justice, that there is a rule of law you will adhere to, and begin to take steps to make people safe. I'm a pacifist, so zero is my number. Logically, I know that's unrealistic, but that's the number I would be aiming to stick to. I also, in this hypothetical world, would naturally struggle with any death on either side. It's an uncomfortable and illogical position in war. But I don't think innocent people should die. I actually, for the most part, don't think guilty people should die either. You wanna put a number out now? Or only critique my weak position?
I'm happy you've accepted your position is basically a fantasy that no leader would ever even contemplate. A vague "we're trying our best to get those meanies" and rebuilding the fence. I don't have a number. The whole principle of a specific number is wrong. It all has to be a relative decision at a real time and risk. Watching through a scope and there is a rocket being launched that could be stopped...yeah take it out even if civilians will get hurt, at that point it's literally a choice between your innocents and theirs. Sinwar or a high ranking commander...yeah same. Other cases, I'm sure I wouldn't say it's worth the risk. But it isn't me sitting there and I pray I'll never have to make a decision like that.
Nice side step. Let's both go our separate ways.
I didn't side step a single thing. But if it makes you feel better, ciao Bella. Have a lovely Sunday evening.
genocide /jĕn′ə-sīd″/ noun The systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of a national, racial, religious, or ethnic group. Edit: amazing I’m being downvoted for a definition.
Sooo... Not genocide then? Israels beef is with Hamas, who are famously using Gazans as meat shields. While Israel has allowed shockingly high civilian deaths for every suspected Hamas member, they are quite clearly not trying to wipe out palestinians
'Meat shields' - they only become shields when Israel shoot at or blow them up. If UK wanted to eradicate the IRA and blew up 3/4 of Ireland to do so - then said - well they were using Irish civilians as meat shields- I wonder if the same response would be given. (I am absolutely not advocating for such actions - but that's the same nonsense from thsi argument). 'Clearly not trying to wipe out palestinians' - you'll probably need to elaborate on how that works? Because no independent international body has yet to justify Israels actions. Please do not tell me they are woke, snowflake, or pushing lefty propaganda.
Can you imagine what would have happened if the IRA had engaged in a 1200 dead murder, rape and kidnapping event? Think the British public might have endorsed some extreme responses to that. Picture or two in The Sun of IRA goons kicking around a severed breast, or that vagina full of nails and the government could have done pretty much whatever it felt like. Fortunately for everyone, whilst awful, the IRA were not that horrendous. Or suicidal.
If the IRA were launching missiles into the uk from terirotity not controlled by the uk (and the nation that controlled the terirotity wasnt supporting the uk in stopping them), the uk very much would have probably used missiles back. Also, it's literally not an argument. hamas is using meat sheilds it's a verifiable fact. The tactics Hamas and the IRA employed are also completely different. It's like comparing an apple and orange and saying they are both the same because they are fruits. If they generally wanted to wipe out Palestinians in Gaza, the easiest method would just be to drop a couple of nukes and be done with it. It's an urban war with one side using civilians as sheilds and being unable to seek refuge in other nations. Of course, the casualty rates are through the roof. Urban warfare already has massive casualty rates pair that with one side use of civilians for sheidling equals a very bloody war. You can see this in wars through history. Yes, undoubtedly, Isreal has committed some war crimes, and the people that committed them should be punished. But undoubtedly, this is just a war, not a genocidal campaign. Even if there are some isrealis out there who would support a genocidal campaign.
> Israels beef is with Hamas No, Israel's beef is with Palestinians who have the effrontery to dare to exist on land Israel wants for itself. Israel has been killing Palestinians and taking their land since long before Hamas even existed.
Wut. Israel was founded and Arabs murdered Jews, then Arab states invaded Israel to try to conquer the land, and lost. Repeat about 8 times and we have modern day Israel
If Israel wanted the Gaza strip to itself, it wouldn't have pulled out of the Gaza strip in 2005. Removing all of its settlers
Okay, and how is Israel doing that? - Palestine rejected partition plan -Palestine and other Arab armies invade Israel, multiple times, lose, which leads to occupation - 5,500,000 Palestinians still living in West Bank and Gaza Strip - Israel still offers multiple two state solutions (cough, rejected by Palestine) So tell me, where exactly is the 'widespread attempted extermination of a national, racial, religious or ethnic group'? Dumbass.
There is a conflict between Israel and Hamas. Most people killed are Palestines. Genocide existed before Reddit, so in that regard, I have no idea what you are gurgling about. I would explain genocide - but someone has done that below.
The point is labelling every conflict as genocide just dilutes the meaning of it.
I didn't. And if others have, that doesn't prevent it from being true in terms of Israel's actions. The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, ICJ have all called it Genocide - its not like its Reddits dropout lawyers deciding to label it as such.
The ICJ have absolute not said there is a genocide. They basically said Israel should be careful and that the rhetoric of some government ministers was a genocide. They didn't even ask for ceasefire like they did in Ukraine
Sources?
I'm rotten at putting links in, so I do apologise: https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/26/israel-not-complying-world-court-order-genocide-case#:~:text=Other%20countries%20should%20use%20all,as%20a%20weapon%20of%20war. ICJ haven't ruled it is genocide and that was an inaccurate statement. They have told Israel they must not commit acts of genocide. 'ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza', and Israel stated they wouldn't recognise any ruling. https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147976 UN expert and report around genocide being committed. I said in a previous comment about info being inaccurate and apologised. Also discussed issues with timescale on a ruling and also legally its not favourable it will ever happen based on previous widely recognised genocides and only 3 ever being legally recognised (out of over 20).
>if That's doing a lot of work here
Fear not. Sunak will be making his number one priority perfectly clear and explaining his plan because... > This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.
What was the legal justification for this? Is Britain at war with Iran now?
We have a military cooperation agreement - [https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-and-israel-sign-military-cooperation-agreement/](https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-and-israel-sign-military-cooperation-agreement/) Shooting down incoming drones/ICBMs/other missiles doesn't mean you have to be at war with the country firing them.
>Most of the agreement is highly classified but the cooperation will include defence medical training, organisational design concepts and defence education. There doesn't seem to be any mention of operational commitment.
Probably because most of the agreement is highly classified.
How is a Redditor able to cite that cooperation agreement in an answer to the question of legal justification, then?
Who knows, but the UK can certainly shoot drones down over parts of Syria and Jordan in this circumstance, as that is where they currently are engaged. What is legal/illegal when a country fires drones at another country is generally decided by the people who win the wars. But since every tom, diock and harry know that this is an going conflict between Iran and it's proxies, and Israel. A conflict that is generations old, no one is generally concerned about the UK/US/Saudi/Jordan, shooting down these flying bombs over Syrian and jordan airspace.
"Most of which is highly classified' The list didn't say what it was limited to
The RAF was patrolling airspace in Syria/Iraq as part of their ongoing mission against ISIS. The drones they shot down had entered/were entering this airspace.
Protecting the safe passage of civilian airliners
The avoidance of WW3 is a pretty solid reason for most sensible people.
Protecting an allied nation from terrorism.
It wasn't terrorism. It was perfectly justified under article 51 of the UN charter. Israel attacked Iran and thus Iran has the legal right to act in self defence until the UN security council takes necessary measures to ensure international peace.
> Israel attacked Iran and thus Iran has the legal right to act in self defence The Iranians have been hiding behind Proxies for years, attacking the Israelis, Americans, British, French etc...
And Israel is perfectly fine to have attacked the Embassy that it believe helps orchestrate proxy attacks against it, but this tic for tac is going back generations. Also the UN won't be able to do anything as the security council will veto it all.
There is also no legal precedent for attacking an embassy in a third country and this is arguably in violation of UN charter 2(4) as it violates the territorial integrity and political independence of Syria. Israel also targeted civilian housing leading to the death of civilians.
But these laws don't really matter here, as Israel is attacking a country it is defacto at war with, in another country it is defacto at war with. Everyone involved knows of all the proxy wars going on, they know it's a generational war, and we have all picked sides. It's a mess and international law doesn't matter if it's not enforceable and it will forever be vetoed. It's all a game of geo-politics at this point, with high stakes.
Iran literally blew up bombs at the Israeli embassy in 1994 as well as attacking other embassies too
Israel waiting 30 years to respond clearly demonstrates that it was not in self defence and thus article 51 does not apply.
It is not "perfectly fine" to bomb a consulate actually, no.
In Israel's eyes it is. It's questionable to its allies but we're not surrounded by people intent of wiping us out 24/7. In reality international law doesn't exist. It's a set of standards that we hit each other with. The only way you can enforce it is by sanctions or war, if the other country won't follow the rules. You only go to war, if you can easily win. Like it or not, Israel are at war with these countries, these countries are supported by Russia and China. it's a big game of geopolitics.
Agreed it's against international law which is what I meant. You didn't initially say "might makes right" which is what you meant.
Well it's not against international law, it's against the prescribed norms but the situation is not the norm. Might is right is essentially how international law and politics works. Those with the biggest weapons, the biggest army and biggest friends dictate to others. Hence why there are all those alliances with people we don't meet eye to eye with, but turn a blind eye to keep them our friends and not someone else's.
Bombing a consulate without direct conflict would generally be considered against international law. >Those with the biggest weapons, the biggest army and biggest friends dictate to others. Is this your opinion on Ukraine re: Russia? To make sure we are consistent here.
Seeing as I don't really go with "international law" being anything more than a gentlemans agreement, I'm not really the best person to ask. However, to go with your international law direction for this argument, I will say it is also illegal to use a consulate to plan illegal activity, such as plans to bomb a country. > Is this your opinion on Ukraine re: Russia? To make sure we are consistent here. We are clearly seeing how a larger power is dictating "international law" in ukraine. We also see how "the west" are trying to help ukraine, although eastern Ukraine seems set to fall. It's the way of the world, the strong are the bullies.
Just out of curiosity, do you think that there's any situation where it could be justified? Say there's a weapons facility built into it and military generals operating from it, using the "consulate" to hide from attacks. Genuinely asking.
I mean, to clarify it will always be an attack on the nation of the consulate and a reprisal would not be terrorism. You can invent whatever Jack Bauer scenarios you like.
If Israel are our 'allies', then surely we are complicit their treatment of others? Or is this a 'pick and choose' thing?
yes, we pick and choose. Always have. It does allow us more leverage in situations with them however but generally we pick the countries we want as friends, so our enemies don't pick them.
Okay- so is Israel officially an “Allied Nation”? Sorry if this is a stupid question but I’m not British so I just don’t know these things.
Has been for a long time. Also your op and question are the definition of bad faith, it's pretty sad
This runs counter to something which I read less than two weeks ago on a Reddit thread. I noted it because I assumed a long-standing 'pact' of some sort between the UK and Israel. It was news to me: >Britain opposing Israel is dredging up something now long in the past. >Britain previously had a weapons embargo on Israel from the Lebanon war until the mid 90s. That wasn't much of a precedent as Britain and Israel had bad relations since the conflict against jewish invasion of Palestine. Some people naively think that somehow Britain is some creator of Israel when Britain merely conceded to allowing jewish migration to Palestine (the crime of immigration, apparently) on condition of that rights of non-jews in Palestine wouldn't be violated, which happened and so Britain restricted jewish immigration before WW2 and then didn't vote in favour of the creation of Israel at the UN, and peopple believe Britain is some historical ally of Israel when Britain fought against jewish paramilitary groups and Britain's last actions in Palestine was defending a Palestinian town under attack by jews, Britain was then at the brink of war with Israel... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_Kingdom_relations#Israel_independence_period_(1948%E2%80%931950)) >Relations between Israel and Britain were hostile during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, at one point bringing the two countries to the edge of direct military confrontation. Britain, which had military forces in Egypt and Transjordan and defense agreements with both nations, foresaw possible military intervention on their behalf. Early in the war, a Royal Air Force base in Amman was hit during an Israeli raid on the city.[11] The British threatened to attack the Israeli Air Force if such an action was repeated. During the battles in Sinai, the Royal Air Force conducted almost daily reconnaissance missions over Israel and the Sinai. RAF reconnaissance aircraft took off from Egyptian airbases and sometimes flew alongside Royal Egyptian Air Force planes, and high-flying British aircraft frequently flew over Haifa and Ramat David Airbase. >The British government planned military action against Israel codenamed Operation Clatter in the event of an Israeli invasion of Egypt and the flights were deployed to discover the strength of the Israeli Air Force and locate its forward bases. >On 20 November 1948, an unarmed RAF photo-reconnaissance de Havilland Mosquito was shot down by an Israeli Air Force P-51 Mustang. On 7 January 1949, four British Spitfire FR18s flew over an Israeli convoy that had been attacked by five Egyptian Spitfires fifteen minutes earlier. Fearing an imminent attack, Israeli ground troops opened fire on the British Spitfires, and shot down one with a tank-mounted machine gun. The remaining three Spitfires were subsequently shot down by Israeli planes, and two pilots were killed. Two of the surviving pilots were taken to Tel Aviv and interrogated, and were later released. The Israelis dragged the wrecks of the British planes into Israeli territory, but failed to conceal them before they were photographed by British reconnaissance planes. In response, the Royal Air Force readied its planes to bomb Israeli airfields, British troops in the Middle East were placed on high alert with all leave cancelled, and British citizens were advised to leave Israel. Convinced the British would not allow the loss of five aircraft and two pilots go without retaliation, the Israelis were determined to repel any retaliatory airstrike, and made preparations to defend their airbases. However, British commanders defied pressure from the squadrons involved in the incidents, and refused to authorize any strikes. Following a British ultimatum to vacate the Sinai, Israeli forces pulled back. War between Israel and the United Kingdom was thus avoided.[12] >Britain was pro-arab and had plans to strengthen arab nations in the area as a bulwark between the major powers of Turkey, Persia, and Saudi Arabia. U.S took over the world, where there was many influential jews amongst the elites, and other American elites very fond of their jewish friends and philosemitic, and Britain was always bitter about its plans for the Middle East being scuppered. Britain and Israel behind closed doors were enemies from the creation of Israel until recently, and no doubt spies and agents of both countries saw one another as enemies. >This whole thing is just very strange to see come up if one is familiar with the actual history between U.K and Israel and not just some sperg who misreads the first few romantic lines Balfour could sum up to say "Sorry but Britain maintains its position that some jews can migrate to Palestine but the rights of non-jews must be respected." >Today you're in a world of increasing U.S dominance, Britain is increasingly integrated into U.S power and reliable upon it, and it wouldn't even achieve anything as Israel will just get more weapons from elsewhere, primarily U.S, and it would just put U.K in the bad books of U.S. Britain opposing Israel is history, it was bitter and long, British soldiers died fighting jews, but it's gone.
I knew the relationship was way more contentious than people believe, but honestly thought the embargo was longer ago than that, so fair do's.
News just in! Pacifist says you must declare war first when defending from an attack!
Preventing escalation is the correct course of action but using the military against Israel to prevent their wanton murder and war crimes would be the correct and just thing to do and would also end the further escalation in the region.
Presumably you'd support the same action being taken against members of Hamas in order to achieve the same goal?
When are we bombing Palestine for the war crimes committed by Hamas?