An entity without a territory and defined citizenship/population is not a state even if you call it so. A two state solution needs an Arabic leadership which accepts Israels existence & rejects all forms of terrorism, be it Islamist, nationalist, left-wing, #Hamas or #PFLP.

This is one subject I’ve genuinely been afraid to talk about - because it’s so far out, so beyond the bounds of historical knowledge and even our self-conception as a species, that I keep thinking to myself: ‘This just can’t be true.’ I find it far more shocking than, say, the discovery of homo floresiensis.

After today’s open sewer running through London, this post needs wheeling out again. The Israel-Hamas war has the strangest framing of any war, ever, due to the attendant Hamas/Iran/Qatar disinformation campaign. Absolutely astonishing that what is a fairly “routine” war has garnered such unwarranted hysteria. Take the “40,000 deaths” that BBC Verify used to destroy the final scraps of their credibility. Exceptionally rarely is there any mention, anywhere in the media, that the total included 10,000 unconfirmed deaths gathered from “media reports” (which Hamas admitted, before they tried to deny it. Fortunately, we have the screenshots) or as many as 20,000 Hamas fighters. Absolutely bizarre that international media cites Hamas without question (in spite of the very well documented flaws and errors) but never mentions IDF figures. Or that those deaths are spread out over 10 months with the majority coming in the first months of the war. Even averaging it out, 4,000 a month is still relatively low in the broad history of warfare. It’s tiny when you consider 19,000+ British soldiers died on the first day of the Somme. William Dalrymple tweeted that Israel has dropped the equivalent of 5 Hiroshima bombs on Gaza. 78,000 Japanese died in an instant at Hiroshima. 5 Hiroshimas would be around 400,000 Gazan dead, not 40,000. Is the Israeli Air Force made up of just really bad shots? Or is what is actually happening that bombs being dropped, not on Gazans, but Hamas tunnels & bunkers so deep underground heavy bombs are the only way of reaching them? Or on rocket launch sites? Or on gatherings of Hamas fighters? The IAF isn’t missing Gazans during these drops… civilians simply are not dying. The areas are evacuated first (which people then also complain about). We see endless footage of levelled neighbourhoods. It’s shocking. But there are amazingly few corpses. That’s why Hamas keep recycling images from other conflicts, like Syria. Why? Because everyone has been evacuated. Why are the neighbourhoods levelled? Because they are riddled with Hamas tunnels which the IDF can’t get at except through the surface buildings. We’ve seen footage of whole stretches of tunnels being detonated - there’s plenty of evidence of their existence. Everyone has been evacuated beforehand. We’ve seen the image of the tunnel on the Rafah border large enough to drive a truck through. In the top of the picture you can see the tip of an Egyptian watchtower. There’s no way the Egyptians didn’t know. Yet none of this is being reported anywhere outside of Israeli media or a few lone voices on social media. Objectively it’s insane but such is the power of disinformation coupled with appalling journalistic standards worldwide… …and all those useful idiots in London today have bought it hook, line and sinker.