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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Tue 18 Mar 10:33
I don’t know how much coverage you’re getting in your news, but what I saw on SBS Australia tonight left me horrified. The images from Gaza were so shocking, so unbearable, that I found myself physically ill. The sheer scale of suffering—the destruction, the deaths of innocent civilians, many of them children—has become too much to take.
Israel’s actions have crossed every moral and legal boundary. This is not self-defence. it is the systematic destruction of a people. Palestinians are being driven from their homes, their land taken, and their history erased. How much longer can the world allow this to continue?
There is a troubling narrative that Israel’s leadership would rather the world ignore. Many who have settled in Palestine since the early 20th century are not indigenous to the region but came from Europe, changing their names to fit a nationalistic agenda. For example, Benjamin Netanyahu’s original family name was Mileikowsky, and his father had emigrated from Poland. This raises serious questions about the long-standing claim that all Jewish settlers have ancestral ties to the land.
For over 80 years, Palestinians have faced dispossession, occupation, and violence. It is time to stop pretending this is a balanced conflict—it is not. It is a brutal military occupation supported by global powers that refuse to hold Israel accountable.
How much longer will the world stand by in silence?
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Topic Originator: The One Who Knocks
Date: Tue 18 Mar 10:49
I don`t think anyone really buys Jewish ancestral claims to all of the land. I mean if you go far enough back everyone would probably have claim of some sort to land in another nation. The reality is though, as Putin and Trump are proving in Ukraine, might is right.
And although my eyes were open
They just might as well be closed
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Topic Originator: Dandy Warhol
Date: Tue 18 Mar 12:01
Israel quite simply is a dirty rat b*stard of a country.
I don`t wanna go down like disco.
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Topic Originator: desparado
Date: Tue 18 Mar 22:34
Utterly incredible that Israel can act with impunity, slaughtering hundreds of innocent people , mostly women and children. It’s utterly abhorrent, disgusting and inhumane, barbaric and yes Genocide.
The US Gov were informed of Israel’s intent to resume carpet bombing civilians …..and they gave the green light. It is truly sickening.
Nobody in their right mind can support the horrific slaughter that is happening in Gaza.
Collective punishment. Israeli bombs may indeed kill a few dozen Hamas but at the same time, many, many more civilians are slaughtered.
It cannot in any way shape or form be justified.
Evil beyond imagination….
What an opportunity we missed in 2014.
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Topic Originator: Dave_1885
Date: Tue 18 Mar 23:14
Everybody knew this was going to happen…….
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Topic Originator: DunfyDave
Date: Wed 19 Mar 02:43
Hypocrisy from America.
They allow Israel to bomb civilians indiscriminately but Biden failed to allow Ukraine to use precision weapons to attack strategic Russian assets inside Russia 🤔
Our European leaders need to wake-up and lead.
At this rate the UN is sleeping like the Dodo and could never ratify anything whilst Russia and the USA hold strategic positions of "veto" on the Security Council
DunfyDave
Post Edited (Wed 19 Mar 02:44)
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Topic Originator: Dave_1885
Date: Fri 21 Mar 18:44
Israel now looking to seize parts of Gaza and permanently occupy them………couldn’t make it up!
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Sun 23 Mar 01:07
Over the past year, I’ve been working on translating a book my father wrote in Gaelic during the 1980s. The book recounts his experiences in the Second World War. He served as a paratrooper in the British Army’s 6th Airborne Division and saw action in some of the war`s most pivotal battles.
He parachuted into Normandy on D-Day, fought through the frozen forests of the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge, and later jumped again during the Allies’ crossing of the Rhine. While advancing across Germany toward the Baltic to link up with Soviet forces, his unit discovered a satellite camp of Bergen-Belsen. There were no gas chambers, but the conditions they found were horrific. The German guards had fled—days, possibly weeks earlier—leaving the remaining prisoners, many of them Jews, with no food, no care, and almost no hope. My father never forgot what he saw there.
Not long after the war in Europe ended, the 6th Airborne was redeployed to Palestine, tasked with policing the British Mandate. It was a thankless and dangerous posting, with tensions escalating between Jewish insurgent groups and Arab communities. British soldiers were caught in the middle, with little political clarity and even less public support back home.
Given what they had seen in Germany, the soldiers held a high degree of sympathy for the Jews coming to Palestine, but it did not take long for that support to diminish and ultimately disappear.
With assistance from my elderly aunt and a cousin, as well as Google Translate, I have completed the translation and plan to produce a podcast of the story soon. It is worth sharing.
Here follows an extract from my father’s time in Palestine. Perhaps most noticeable is how little seems to have changed in 80 years. Anyway, I hope you find this interesting…
Post Edited (Sun 23 Mar 02:03)
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Sun 23 Mar 01:11
Palestine - A Soldier’s Recollection
PART ONE
There came a time when it was no longer safe for a British soldier to walk unarmed through the streets of Tel Aviv — the new city built beside the old Arab port of Jaffa. Soldiers were killed in ambushes while walking alone. Military vehicles couldn’t travel far without an armed escort. Mines were hidden in potholes, waiting for a lorry to roll over them and detonate.
At night, insurgent groups attacked poorly guarded army camps, stealing weapons and ammunition. Many of us wondered how the Stern Gang and Irgun always seemed to know so much about our defences — until we noticed the constant presence of fruit sellers and others just outside the wire. Some wore Arab robes, but we came to learn that didn’t always mean they were Arab.
Most of us had come to Palestine with deep sympathy for the Jewish people. Some had seen the inside of concentration camps. my own unit had come across a satellite camp of Bergen-Belsen. We found no gas chambers, but what we saw — starving survivors, skeletal and dying, left without food or care — haunted us. The guards had vanished days, maybe weeks earlier. What remained was humanity on the brink of extinction.
So yes, we understood why survivors wanted a homeland. We wanted to support them.
But, my God, how they tested us.
As unrest escalated, our unit relocated from a base in Gaza to a new camp in the greener north, nearer the orchards and the towns where most of the violence was erupting. It was a more pleasant setting — olive groves and shaded fields — but it did nothing to calm the atmosphere.
We were ordered to surround cities like Tel Aviv and conduct house-to-house searches. All males between the ages of sixteen and sixty were rounded up and herded into holding pens for questioning. None of us took pride in it. This wasn’t what we’d trained for back in England. This wasn’t the kind of war we’d fought in Normandy, the Ardennes, or across Germany. This was something else — murky, brutal, demoralising.
We began to feel like we were behaving like the forces we’d fought against.
(cont...)
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Sun 23 Mar 01:14
PART TWO
Soon, soldiers were being lynched, beaten, or suffocated in trunks. The worst acts of cruelty were reserved for those who had shown the most restraint. One day in Netanya, a well-liked officer was captured while walking to a shop. He was stripped and publicly beaten in the town square. The locals stood by, silent.
When news reached us, fury spread through the ranks. The commander issued strict orders: no retaliation. But many ignored him.
That night, we slipped out of camp in small groups, pretending to go for a walk. We met beyond the trees, without officers, and marched to Netanya. We broke windows. We smashed up the shops opposite where the beating had taken place. No shots were fired, and thankfully, no one was harmed. We returned to camp quietly.
The locals made no complaint. They understood why it happened — and perhaps realised how much worse it could have been.
But relations only grew more strained.
There was tension within the army, too. Rivalries between the Scottish and Welsh companies of the Airborne boiled over into fistfights. And then came the worst of it.
A group of Scots were on guard duty in Tel Aviv. They slept in canvas tents in the city centre, not bothering anyone. One dark night, while they slept, the Stern Gang opened fire from nearby rooftops. Seven young men were slaughtered in their beds.
We responded with a mass roundup. All the men of Tel Aviv were brought in for questioning. A few were imprisoned. But we all knew it meant little. It didn’t bring our comrades back. And with that, whatever sympathy we had left dissolved. We were seen not as liberators or peacekeepers but as obstacles to be removed.
Night after night, we patrolled the roads, responding to every suspicious fire alarm, every flare, every noise in the dark. Any false move might cost a life.
One night, we were posted on the road between Jerusalem and the coast. We spotted a vehicle climbing down from the hills — a bus. No vehicle should have been on that road at night. We blocked the road and signalled it to stop. But the driver accelerated. He tried to get past us.
We opened fire.
The bus veered into a ditch. It was full of civilians. Screaming, crying, wounded people. They said they were a choir returning late from Jerusalem. They had taken the back road to reach Tel Aviv by morning. Why they didn’t stop when signalled, no one would say.
It was a tragedy. But it was also part of our duty`s bitter, tragic reality.
(cont...)
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Sun 23 Mar 01:16
PART THREE
After two years in that country, most of us were bitter, exhausted, and more cynical than we’d ever thought possible. Military power had proved useless. Political solutions, even more so. The Zionists wanted the land to themselves, and nothing we did changed that.
When orders came in the spring of 1947 for the 6th Airborne to return to England, no tears were shed. We boarded the Alcantara at Haifa under heavy guard. A large crowd of Jewish onlookers jeered and spat as we left. They were jubilant. They knew we were going — and with us, British rule.
During the Mandate, the 6th Airborne Division suffered 58 dead and 236 wounded. In total, 750 British soldiers and civilians were killed in the three years before Israel’s independence.
Footnote
Many former members of the Stern Gang later entered Israeli politics. Their ideology lived on through parties like Herut and, eventually, Likud, the dominant political force in Israel today.
(ENDS)
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Topic Originator: DunfyDave
Date: Sun 23 Mar 06:58
WOW Oz
That is some read.
Brutally honest.
Thank you for translating and sharing this with us all 🙏
DunfyDave
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Topic Originator: dd23
Date: Sun 23 Mar 08:32
Agreed, that’s a very interesting read, and well written.
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Topic Originator: LochgellyAlbert
Date: Sun 23 Mar 13:35
Certainly worth the read, the history of Israel explained!😮💨
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Topic Originator: Raymie the Legend
Date: Tue 25 Mar 02:12
Thanks for sharing. Interesting and harrowing. Your father was a brave man.
It`s bloody tough being a legend
Ron Atkinson - 1983
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Tue 25 Mar 05:53
They all were, Ray.
Late in his life, my father told me that not a single day had passed since he hadn’t thought about the boys they had left behind in foreign fields. They were all so young, many still in their teens.
These days, we can look at war as if it’s some kind of video game — all strategy and spectacle — but for many who lived it, the impact never fades.
My father never truly got Palestine out of his system.
He once told me they weren’t fighting an army there — they were hunting ghosts. For, unlike the Germans, the Zionist fighters wore no uniform and followed no rules of war. They struck from shadows and disappeared into crowds.
Suspicion became second nature. Trust evaporated after every ambush, every attack. By the time he was demobbed, my father said he wasn’t sure what kind of soldier — what kind of man — he’d become.
I don’t think post-traumatic stress was even a recognised term in the 1940s, but I have no doubt he carried it.
He was a fine man. Respected and quietly liked by many. But he was never at ease in crowds — probably why we always sat in the main stand when he came with me to EEP.
We owe that generation more than we’ll ever understand.
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