I am neutral on the Arab-Israel dispute but 100% against bad logic

I hate war. I hate killing, especially the killing of civilians and even more so I hate the deliberate killing of civilians.

These attacks by Hamas will scupper a declaration of peace between Israel and the Saudis. Does Hamas calculate that in time the demographics of Americans will change and the proportion of people devoted to Israel (Evangelicals especially) will diminish?

I don't think that's the only or even the main reason for the attacks. 

I have no idea what the exact reasons are. 

Why attack a pop festival or put atrocities against civilians on Facebook?

I am neutral on the Arab-Israel dispute but 100% against bad logic - many articles and tweets about Gaza abound in that, unfortunately.

I agree with this tweet, except I have every sympathy for Arabs and for Jews.

Philippe Lemoine

@phl43

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Oct 7

The debate about Israel is weird for me because at the emotional level, I basically have no sympathy for the Palestinians and their supporters, but I'm really annoyed intellectually by the poverty of the moral reasoning deployed by Israel's supporters.

People are comparing attitudes to the attack on Gaza with reactions to the attack on the World Trade Center on 11th September 2001. 

On 11 September 2001 I very stupidly didn't realise how many had been killed at first. 

I remember thinking that a terrorist attack on the USA had been almost inevitable because of America's backing for Israel. I also remembered the Irish Americans who had funded the IRA terrorist campaign in my country. 

One Englishman I spoke to said his only reaction was annoyance that the TV company cancelled the football match he planned to see.

Others reacted with fury and that led to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. 

If only the hanging chads had hung the other way in the Florida election.

There has now been a big spasm of sympathy for Israel in the developed world.

Meanwhile, inevitably, in capital cities across Western Europe groups of young Muslim men celebrated Hamas's actions

Many people said such demonstrations were or should be illegal.

Celebrating killing civilians is absolutely abhorrent and goes against British, or rather civilised, values. 

60 years ago the same went for restricting freedom to express whatever political opinion you like, so long as you did not incite violence. Not now, of course.

Councillor Miqdad Al-Nuaimi, former Mayor of Newport in Wales, was suspended from the Labour Party after he tweeted: “A Final Solution for the Gazans, 2million people, Genocidal annihilation.”

The British Foreign Secretary complained that the BBC does not describe Hamas as terrorists. 

He has a degree in catering from Ealing Tech and is not especially bright. 

News coverage should avoid words like terrorist and genocide, which provide heat not light, and just report what happened. 

Hate is another word to avoid. 

Left-wing Israeli paper Haaretz:

The tweet below would make a good Cambridge History Paper question:

Noah Carl

@NoahCarl90

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Oct 8

What is the principled argument for supporting Israel against Palestine and Ukraine against Russia? It seems that if one were to draw an analogy between the two conflicts, Israel would be Russia and Palestine would be Ukraine.