iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 16h

If you are talking of the settler terrorism to seize the West Bank or the Israeli military actions to wipe out the Palestinian presence in Gaza and move the border with Lebanon northwards then you are right. But is also not possible to rewind back to 1948. That's where the complexity lies.

000

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

You do like things simple don't you.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Sure. But what if the people you call racists have done nothing towards implementation? We are back to conflating crimes committed by settler terrorists in Palestine with the blameless owner of a kosher butchers in Golders Green.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

That's not the point. The WISH for a state is the same in Zionism as it is in other nationalisms. The implementation is the problematic bit. Attack the implementation not the wish.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

How did they know the Afghan they targeted was bomb maker or facilitator?

000

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

But what does the state remaining Jewish mean. Surely for most it means Jewish holidays automaticallly being public holidays, Jewish beliefs being the norm in schools, the assumption that restaurants and food shops will be kosher unless stated otherwise. Not necessarily that Jews rule over others.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

There's an old Jewish joke of two friends meeting up just before one of them is about to emigrate to Israel. He is distraught and his friends asks why. "You know how every Hanukah we toast 'next year in Jerusalem'?" "Yes, what's the problem" "We never actually meant it!"

000

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

No. Nothing in Zionism specifically states Jews should rule others. It may seem like splitting hairs but it is those hairs that made the Green Party motion offensive to nearly all Jews, including the abstaining Polanski, while giving the the likes of Netanyahu ammunition.

210

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Zionism is not racism, no more so than Irish or any other identity based nationalism. Implementation of Zionist ideals in the geographical and ethnic realities of the 20th and 21st centuries do risk adopting racist measures. And that is certainly the case.

300

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Borders disputes are not trivial, ask the Irish. Wherever you draw a border there will be people who feel they are on the wrong side and what if they are a majority in a border region. Again look at Northern Ireland. The question I have for you is this - what problems are you trying to fix.

000

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Is Lebanon a country? Yes it has borders, a government, UN membership, all the administrative trappings of a country. But its borders were drawn by British and French civil servants and that has been the cause of a century of grief. So what a country is is far from a simple question.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

You misread my position. I am against borders. Borders that divide people. Administrative borders are necessary to keep things manageable but borders that define who you are bad things IMO. The UK minus NI is an island. The sea is generally a border you can do nothing about. Why divide up the rest?

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

So? Does that wipe out all other interpretations?

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

You are beginning to be quite offensive now with your name calling.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

To you England is an oppressor to resist. To Suella Braverman England is an ethnicity. Kemi Badenoch disagrees. To WW2 propagandists England was the Sussex Downs and Yorkshire Moors. And the white cliffs of Dover. To others England represents moral values. Which England are you asking about?

200

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

There is a section of his base that like the cruelty and racism when it is bombast at a rally but are uncomfortable with it being turned into reality. High grocery prices gives them a way to dodge the contradiction.

110

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I would have no problem with Scotland having the same powers as a German Lander, ideally Wales, Yorkshire, Northumbria, Kent and regions based on the major cities having the same. My problem is the poetry of national resurgence drowning out the prose of practical life. As it did with Brexit

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I do have a life outside Blue-sky you know

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

So is Zionism racism? Another complex issue where it is shrill demanded that a binary choice is made.

000

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Russia has been aggressive militarily for over a dozen years now, as Ukraine and recently Poland and the Baltic states are well aware. Maybe you are of the mindset of it's far away leave them to it, but history tells us that doesn't end well. Is that an incorrect analysis?

000

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The stupidity is the Green Party getting suckered into meaningless debates about Zionism. That's not what the Green Party is for.

010

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Last May Lib Dems became the largest party on West Sussex council and now lead the council with Green and Labour support. In my ward the Lib Dem got 60% of the vote. There are still a couple of Tory Parliamentary seats in the county. There are other counties across the South and South West like that

110

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Sagging poll ratings or getting squeezed in by-elections? Reality is that the Lib Dem poll ratings are pretty stable but in four by-elections they have done badly. But then none of those elections was in promising LD territory.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Are we discussing Brexit now in rational terms? That was drowned out ten years ago by English nationalist emotional arguments.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

And yet the slogans of "Take Back Control", "Make Our Own Laws", "Control Our Borders" and so on would work in both cases.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Ah, so now you want to control England. There is a very important debate to be had about separation and decentralising power in the UK, and not just Scotland or Wales. Nationalist emotion is just noise, as it was with Brexit and we know how that turned out.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The consequences of a border at Berwick might be more far-reaching than airy talk of freedom and identity

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Ah, the will of the people .........

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The interesting thing about this Caledonian pile on is that it is reprising all the worst arguments used by Leave in the Brexit referendum.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

It's not a difficult question. Israel exists because Britain got the UN to partition the Palestine Mandate into a Jewish state and a non-Jewish state. The existence of one rests on the existence of the other. The UN, Britain, neighbouring Arab states and the world generally failed to create that.

000

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The federal Republic of Germany is also made up of countries, that's what "lander" means.

200

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Alex Salmond was quite happy to blur the two when he saw the independence case slipping in 2014.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Resorting to ad hominem attack is a sign of weak argument.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The football team is a historical anomaly. The first Scotland team was entirely London based made up of men whose Scottishness was wearing a kilt on Burns Night. As for the rest, I don't think the UN agrees. That Act of 1707 negates much of it.

300

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

As for government, there is a regional assembly, called a Parliament, in Edinburgh but it has no sovereignty beyond the powers granted by Westminster. I come back to my original point, the nation argument is one of identity and emotion. It's a feeling and acting on feelings is often unwise.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Scotland does not have its own money, it has a number of banks who are authorised to issue banknotes that are legal tender. Though spending those in England depends on the willingness of the trader to accept them. The separate legal system means Westminster has to specifically say a law applies.

300

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

There are many valid reasons for devolving more and more powers to regions of the UK but Scots insist they are a nation not a region. That is why I talk of emotional nationalism.

2110

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

As I point out, there is a difference between left wing policies as a means to an environmental end and using environmental politics as cover for less popular left wing policies.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

There is a tension between Greens taking up left wing positions and policies as a means to an environmental end, and other leftists seeing the Greens as a vehicle towards wider acceptance. I think Makerfield and now this seat are exposing that tension.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The Zionism is Racism motion will have cost the Greens are lot of votes. Not just the motion itself but the clunky handling of the issue is too reminiscent of Labour's antisemitism issues under Corbyn. The suspicion is that defectors from Labour are importing that nonsense into the Greens.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I don't think so, you guys have rather proved my point that Scottish independence is emotional nationalism.

300

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Why should a bunch of nationalists in Glasgow and Edinburgh decide on the constitutional arrangements of Shetland?

200

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Zak Polanski pulling a couple of arrows out of his feet might be an apt addition to the tapestry.

000

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Tell me then why you have a saltire flag in your ID and why Scottish nationalists are not satisfied with anything less than a nation state.

400

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Corbynite nutjobs like Owen Jones left Labour for the Greens taking their unelectability virus with them.

100

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Extend the tapestry with Zak Polanski pulling an arrow or two out of his feet perhaps. That stupid Zionism is Racism motion probably cost a lot of votes.

060

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

If you think that nationalist separation is not the answer then it is perfectly consistent to want to reverse Brexit and keep a Scots Indyref off the table. Stop seeing things through ethnic identity politics.

800

wh1952.bsky.social @wh1952.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

One interesting factor in the polling is the stability of the Lib Dem vote. Borne out by the local elections too. Ed Davey is getting a lot of stick but if the LDs keep their 70 seats that could make them king makers again. But it's a different Tory party from Cameron's.

011