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"Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas ... This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."[50][51] -- B NetanyahuPA being less incompetent and corrupt wouldn’t do much to change that when significant proportion of the West Bank are occupied and Israeli is continuously taking over more territory. A state that doesn’t control its own territory is by definition not very successful..
And what hope does the Palestinian Authority really have in the West Bank when they continue to be under occupation and the Israeli govern covertly and overtly supports illegal settlements?
Finally - how can you look down on Gaza/West Bank as 'not legitimate' states when large parts of the state of Israel were taken through their own terrorism and invasion of their neighbours. That seems to be easily forgotten. They're 'legitimate' only because they've been backed by a superpower.
I do agree that this is an empty gesture by complicit regimes that are trying to wash away their sins in arming and funding Israel (while USA is the primary culprit, UK and German have also poured vast ammounts of money into Israel). But calling it "premature" while in the middle of a genocide is ridiculous. Something needs to be done. _Something_ needs to happen.
And what's the rationale for calling Hamas a "terrorist" government? Israel has a government that has commited massacres against civilians in a scale and number much greater than anything Hamas has done, and yet it is recognized by the international community.
Very rarely, if ever, a State has been founded without fighting. Palestineans at this moment are fighting for their survival against genocidical maniacs, and they need weapons and support, not meaningless "sympathy" and prayers.
You don’t have to imagine; Bin Laden took shelter in Pakistan and all that happened was a single commando raid.
Cynically, this recognition by the UK is domestic politicking. Starmer is at rock bottom and so he is seeking to boost support from the hard left and Muslim demographics.
Unfortunately, this is not a topic conducive to discussion, including here.
What signal would it send if Israel came out better after killing 60 thousands people, almost 20 thousand children, razing to the ground most of a people's territory and commiting uncountable war crimes?
Israel had some of the strongest support it ever had after October 7th, and if in the end there will be negative consequences for the country, it will be *entirely* because of how its government chose to respond to it.
How did the US react to Pearl Harbour and 9/11? (Both of which were smaller attacks in relative terms than 7th October).
Should the response to such attacks even be proportionate?
I don't know what response Hamas expected but I suspect they did seek a very bloody one. They must have known and expected it considering the horror of what they did. So, again, I think this is all playing right into their hands, even if Israel has indeed been brutal.
Curious how you're determining this? Unless I'm checking the wrong thing both had higher numbers of deaths than Oct 7. Pearl Harbour I think is different from the other two as it occurred during a world war (albeit the US hadn't entered it yet) and was an attack on the military primarily. And if anything is to be learnt from the reaction to 9/11 it's that it was a total waste of life. Invade a country, destabilise the entire region leading to an explosion in terror attacks in the west, and then hand that country over to the Taliban a couple of decades later. Oh and find Bin Laden in a completely different country a decade after starting the war.
I would say Afghanistan was disproportionate. Interestingly in 20 years of war there, there were less civilian casualties than just two years in Gaza. I think that tells us something about the proportionality of the current war.
>> Should the response to such attacks even be proportionate?
Yes, according to agreed international law.
>> What is a proportionate way to respond
I don't know the answer to that. But 50k+ dead civilians is disproportionate. Preventing aid from entering to the point of famine - disproportionate. Genocide - disproportionate. I think it's also critical to remember that, as despicable as Hamas actions were, they didn't come from nothing. That doesn't justify them, but it does help explain them. If you treat people worse that dogs for generations they might bite.
>> I don't know what response Hamas expected but I suspect they did seek a very bloody one.
No idea but my guess is they thought the hostages would help minimise the damage at least short term. It would be reasonable to assume that if you had innocent hostages in tunnels their government would be hesitant to bomb you from the skies. Sadly the Israeli government has shown they do not care about the hostages. The worst part of all of this is that the civilians killed in Gaza and the abandoned hostages are cared about so little by the people supposedly fighting 'for them'.