Israel-Gaza war

[EastAnglianLefty]

He's actually Sir Tony Blair now. With the Order of the Garter no less, which is at the sole discretion of the monarch.

Is it not customary to raise former PMs to peerage? I seem to recall Denis Thatcher was even given an herediatery peerage

The hereditary peerage for Thatcher was a bit of an oddity, but the convention did used to be that former PMs got a seat in the Lords. That broke down because Major doesn't want one* and it would have been viewed as a slight to him to appoint his successors. As of today, obviously we no longer care about that.

*Brown also doesn't want one, unless it's as part of the procedure of abolishing the HoL as we know it. Blair isn't that bothered and there have been questions in the past about the financial disclosures required and how those might interfere with his business interests.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Nile Gardiner did Thatcher's photocopying for a very short period of time which more or less coincided with when it became impossible to conceal her advancing senility any longer. He does not have insight into what her thought processes would have been.

To the very limited extent that there's a chance he's right, it relates to information already given.

[EastAnglianLefty]

The argument that given the opportunity to move elsewhere to somewhere with better prospects, much of the population of the Gaza Strip would choose it, is very different from the argument that forcibly removing the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip is legitimate.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Israel violating UN resolution by dropping bombs on Rafah.

https://twitter.com/mhdksafa/status/1772780840134553885

No more weapons.

Unless the US has a way to get the hostages back, cutting off Israel won't stop the war, it will only escalate it. Biden knows this.

What's your logic here? Cutting off US weapons doesn't materially affect the balance of power between Israel and Hamas and Hamas no longer has the power to escalate beyond what it's already doing. So are you suggesting that Israel is going to escalate things because it's not receiving military aid?

[EastAnglianLefty]

Israel violating UN resolution by dropping bombs on Rafah.

https://twitter.com/mhdksafa/status/1772780840134553885

No more weapons.

Unless the US has a way to get the hostages back, cutting off Israel won't stop the war, it will only escalate it. Biden knows this.

What's your logic here? Cutting off US weapons doesn't materially affect the balance of power between Israel and Hamas and Hamas no longer has the power to escalate beyond what it's already doing. So are you suggesting that Israel is going to escalate things because it's not receiving military aid?

Absolutely. Placing Israel under a weapons embargo (which is what this would be) would give them a ticking clock. They would then seek to finish off the threat of Hamas in ways that would make the war up until now look like a walk in the park. This is a thoroughly predictable outcome, which is why Biden, a very smart and effective President, has not taken that tack especially given that he can wait Netanyahu out.

I think the argument "Give us weapons or we will do things even we acknowledge are war crimes" may have certain problems inherent to it.