Prime Ministers of Israel

Strange sort of genocide where the population of Palestinians has increased many-fold since 1948, especially given the preponderance of power Israel has held in recent decades.

Even the claim that the inevitable civilian casualties caused by recent urban warfare are victims of a genocide holds no water when the fact that Israel could have killed off all the Gazans in the first week or two is considered. Indeed, the only arguable act of genocide was on October 7th when Hamas and its supporters sought to exterminate as many Jews as possible, and promised to do so again. No wonder Israel didn't let them off the hook.

Hear hear

What nonsense - if Israel wanted to wipe out the Palestinians they would all be dead by now, at least the ones in Gaza. It has the means and opportunity to do so.

It's fighting a war against a constellation of Islamist terror groups who attacked it and have said they will do so again and again until Israel is no more.

The Arabs could have had peace decades ago but every time they chose war.

That isn't to say the Israelis are perfect; they are not. The Jewish extremists and cavemen who breed like rabbits pose as much of a threat to Israel as their Arab counterparts do. But the war is not about settlements, nor even the occupation of the West Bank and only the final eradication of Hamas, Hezbollah and the decapitation of the Iranian octopus (the Ayatollahs) will offer even the remotest chance of bringing about peace.

I wish Israel god speed in that endeavour and for genuine and lasting peace thereafter.

Actually, besides the fact that I am not Jewish, there are plenty of differences between me and Itamar Ben-Gvir; he is a radical pro-settler nutcase whereas I, as in my previous comment made clear, oppose the settlements and would even support, if I believed that it would be used for the betterment of its own people rather than as a bigger platform for Hamas et al to attack Israel, the creation of a Palestinian state.

That last point is the crux of the matter. If Israel were to disengage from the West Bank, then that territory would be used to attack Israel, just as the Gaza Strip was. Those territories were not occupied by Israel until 1967 and yet until the 1967 war the Arabs were still committed to Israel's destruction. The conflict isn't about settlements or even the occupation itself and wrong though the former certainly are, both could end tomorrow and there would still be no peace. The Arabs would continue to attack Israel then cry at the inevitable consequences.

The conflict is about the right of Israel to exist. Without settlements the conflict would continue.

Also the Jews' long history in the land is evident; this is where they originated and where they have gone back to. Including the more than 50% of Israeli Jews descended from those kicked out of Islamic countries (Mizrahim and Sephardim) and those who hitherto had not chosen to move to Israel Israel who are being driven there by the behaviour of hate filled Muslim settlers in Europe.

What's rabid about it? If English people were a people without a country scattered around the world it would be logical thing for us to coalesce around the low countries and northern Germany.

There has long been disagreements on this or that between the various Jewish groups in Israel; that is not relevant to the fact that the Mizrahim and Sephardim had to move to Israel from Arab countries due to persecution there (if you want to brush up on something, brush up on the Farhud in Iraq). Nor does it change the fact that the numbers of European Jews moving to Israel has increased markedly in the past few years, largely due to the increase of antisemitism directed at them from the new Europeans.