Vance Booker

Jake you’ve gone full fledged Muslims are a malevolent force that have turned Europe into a land where women flee from rapists. You have no problem (rightfully) complaining about anti-Semitism while you brazenly participate in shameless gross Islamophobic narratives.

Gross Jake. Gross.

I’m glad you read a book. A book by a bigot. Reading a book…[Read more]

Robert, you are, genuinely verging into the territory of islamophobia. You are in that grey zone now, closer to Islamophobia than not. No one here on this site, condones the destructive forces of religion, Islam is by no means, any exception. No one here is a fan of Hamas’s policies, nor does anyone here do anything other than fully condemn acts…[Read more]

Laughs, hey Michael – end of the world is nigh again?

Indeed, saw a documentary about the struggles of Ethiopian Jews as well as other more “exotic”Jews such as those from Persia, India and Central Asia (Uzbekistan etc). They have also found themselves struggling on the social ladder which seems to be somewhat akin to how close they are culturally to Western Europe. Of course the story is far more…[Read more]

I would refer to Israel only as a moderately secular state, not even as secular as Hungary or Poland at the moment (which are terribly unsecular compared with the rest of Europe. Even though many people are not practicing and many government intuitions and policies are more secular than they easily could be, it is still a state whose origin, being…[Read more]

I agree with much of what you have said Jake. Indeed, I volunteered in the Beirut Palestinian refugee camp and they were, absolutely, treated terribly. I disagree with your assessment that arab citizens in Israel are treated the same as other citizens. They face systemic discrimination, often severe poverty compared with other Israelis, barriers…[Read more]

Jake, couldn’t agree more that Israel, in general is a more ideal place to live in terms of freedoms and democracies, if you are a mostly white Jewish person, than neighbouring countries (if you are anything else). I certainly admire what they have accomplished all things considered. But then, Israel wasn’t colonised by western powers. A massive…[Read more]

Yes antisemitism is a massive problem, yes politically Palestine is responsible for atrocious behaviour, no, none of this justifies the mountain of bullshit that comes out every day from Israel.

Jake you would not be washing over these decades of injustice from Istael and expect such brutal compromise from any other people in the world in any…[Read more]

Robert this is an overly simplistic description of the Israeli/Palestinian situation. The occupied territories can see year upon year of relative peace, and yet the status quo never changes. Israel, even during the best of behaviour from Palestine keeps encroaching on their meagre territory and resources and applying brutal policies. At this…[Read more]

There has to be accountability within Gaza for what Hamas does. They are elected (even if it is done, to some extent with anti-democratic measures). There are ways to resist Hamas. Survey after survey shows majority support for militant crimes against innocents and a majority support for Hamas in Gaza (over half the populace has a positive view of…[Read more]

Regardless of which side we might have some sympathies towards, it is absolutely ridiculous to excuse crimes against humanity. If you are a militant, guerrilla fighter etc. you always have the option to target combatants and military infrastructure (and should). Massacring civilians (especially those as far from combatant capabilities/age as…[Read more]

Time and time again, we think of nations as having some kind of national agency. In other words, if there is a national will, then there is a clear way forward. When you are dealing with at least one government made of coalitions of parties with various electoral strategies, party structures, donors and power structures, decisions are made on what…[Read more]

Innocents, of course, are fair game in war

So says every war lord who perpetrates pointless horrific war crimes. If terrorising civilians goes to achieve your aim, then so is justifiable China’s crimes against the Uighurs, the Myanmar campaign against the Rohingya, British soldiers randomly shooting N. Ireland Catholics who gave them a funny look…[Read more]