Craving Peaches

I'm not even speaking of abandoning it entirely. I'm talking about sanctions for repeated violation of international law. Reagan was willing to do that for much less then what Israel has done now. Not sure if I am getting your point here. I think it depends on the country. In many respects I think it is unhelpful to lump all those countries together in 'The West' like they are a monolith. Spain and Ireland have different views to Austria and the Czech Republic, for example, when it comes to the issue at hand. People within those countries will have different views to their compatriots.

Netanyahu has apparently ordered the UN peacekeepers to leave. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c80r2y47rz4t?post=asset%3A085b6f0b-d8f4-42a1-8515-89a3ffa259da#post Will the international community finally respond with a bit of backbone? Or will there just be more words with nothing to back them up?

Wrong thread

Israel has reportedly attacked the UN Peacekeeping Forces in Lebanon. Israeli forces fire on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon | UN News World reacts to alleged Israeli attack on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon | Israel attacks Lebanon News | Al Jazeera As expected, there is condemnation but nothing to actually encourage the Israeli government to ensure this doesn't happen again (which would be sanctions, since this is far from the first violation of international law).

I don't know, they've effectively lumped themselves in with Farage as far as I can tell, and I suspect that the sort of people who would vote for either them or Farage would prefer to vote for Farage given how incompetent the last Conservative government was and this ridiculous perception that Farage is a man of the people who 'tells it like it is'.

That's rubbish. He wasn't a hostage of Bran and Rickon, was he?

I was just wondering if maybe there are certain characters or events that are supposed to parallel the characters or events in the story.

I do wonder if the founding myth of Storm's End has come into play/will come into play. I don't think we were just told that for the sake of worldbuilding (though I could be wrong). I also think there's potentially something up with the 'Cersei's plot to kill Trystane' plan.

No doubt Iran is destabilising, but I don't think you can say Iran is destabilising and Israel isn't, given that they try to spread instability in response to each other, and Netanyahu told people to transfer funding to Hamas in order to undermine the influence of more moderate Palestinian factions in order to stall/block the two state solution. Also Lebanese Hezbollah was created after Israel invaded Lebanon to try and install what appeared to be a radical Christian fascist government. The two aren't mutually exclusive. All the talk of (re)establishing settlements in Gaza and the 'voluntary migration' of the Palestinians living there doesn't sound good to say the least. There should really be more pushback from the International Community against such endorsement of ethnic cleansing. I think the relevant government officials and all extremist settler organisations should be sanctioned for a start.

Yeah, that's what I thought. The North was still going to be raided, but Robb sending Theon made it worse because Winterfell got taken and then Bran and Rickon were presumably lost.

Commando is my comfort zone movie.

I don't think so. The winter conditions in North that we see in the books would make overland trade to the Watch extremely difficult or impossible. Eastwatch-by-the-Sea is mentioned as a place where the Watch gets a lot of trade.

I don't think this works as a comparison, since Scotland and England are both part of the same country. In such a scenario, were the UK to respond like Israel, they would be killing tens of thousands of their own citizens and destroying their own infrastructure. Many English people live in Scotland. Regarding your point more generally, I don't think anyone here is saying that Israel should have done nothing. It's not about responding or not responding. It's about the way they responded. I think the general consensus now is that they've gone over the top, are alienating their allies and are not improving their situation in terms of security because their actions are destabilising the region. Stuff like dropping the 2000 pound bombs in residential areas rather than using more precise munitions, the poor man with Down's Syndrome who was mauled by an Israeli army dog and left to die by the looks of things, the suspiciously high death toll amongst journalists, the airstrikes hitting aid workers who had confirmed their movements in advance with the IDF, the bombing of the Church of Saint Porphyrius, etc. At best, it gives people the impression they are not conducting the war as well as they could be, and that they aren't really taking on board the advice of their allies. At worst, it looks like an attempt at ethnic cleansing, especially in light of the numerous statements made by government ministers on the topic.

You continue to interfere with the trade and shipping as mentioned previously. Chett notes they need supplies from the south and such supplies probably aren't being transported overland, especially in winter. Pressure people connected to the Watch etc. Also, if the Bank thought the loan would be impossible to recover from the Watch, they wouldn't have made it in the first place. The Watch as an institution is based on people keeping their vows. So they have a vested interest in upholding their agreements too. Or it encourages mutiny.

They betrayed him because they were bribed to though. They sent home their troops because of the Jeyne marriage. But the Red Wedding happened because they were offered being LP of the Riverlands and stuff (at least that was the impression I got). Tywin can still make that offer if he has the Tyrell as allies. I don't think what Ramsay did in the Hornwood had anything to do with that? Roderick went off to fight other Ironborn. The plan to take Winterfell was Theon's idea.

It didn't work specifically because Sam intervened though. I don't see what the issue is. You talk about giving away money as if they can't do that to try and recover repayment of loans, but that is exactly what they do when they give Stannis money?

The whole 'should we leave the ECHR' debate is rather frustrating as many people seem to not realise what the ECHR is and think it has way more power than it really does. The ECHR is not synonymous with the EU but a separate institution, the rulings from the ECtHR aren't actually binding, and there's no way to enforce it if the national government doesn't want to. The same people who claimed leaving the EU would solve the country's problems are now saying that if we leave the ECHR it will solve the country's problems.

I agree to a certain extent, but whomever Robb picks to lead pre-Green Fork probably isn't going to have an impact on Balon's decision to invade the North or Stannis killing Renly or Robb's own poor judgement in marrying Jeyne. So I still think he'd be screwed, unless whomever he picks manages to do something amazing like kill/capture Tywin or completely wreck the opposing Lannister army, thus putting them in a position where they are weak enough that the Tyrells aren't bothered about an alliance with the Lannisters. In that case, however, Stannis probably takes King's Landing and then Robb has to worry about him, if he isn't assassinated then he still has the issue where he has to defend the Riverlands and can't just retreat North, though he would be in a better position then than he was when he was facing the Lannisters and Tyrells.

Hopefully this will lead to less success for both the Tories and Reform.

Netanyahu: Money to Hamas part of strategy to keep Palestinians divided - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com) For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it's blown up in our faces | The Times of Israel

Specifically not meteorological developments though, as Hippocras has made clear. And also: If something abnormal was going on regarding the storms, characters would probably comment about it as they usually do when something is abnormal is going on. None of the characters in the Arianne Sample chapter, which is actually set in the Stormlands and features native Stormlander characters, comment about an abnormal lack of storms I don't think GRRM really is thinking about the meteorology that much, since he doesn't think about other details like size, currency, how characters actually survive the winters beyond storing food, how Dothraki and Ironborn cultures last long term if they can't parasitise off others etc. So I don't think there is much further to discuss other than what Hippocras has clearly indicated is to be discussed.

Tywin tried that same strategy to install a friendly Lord Commander and it almost worked (Slynt was close to winning and would have if not for Sam's intervention in favour of Jon; at least that was the impression I got reading the text). I don't see why the IB can't try the same thing.

Gaza in rubble and ruin (reuters.com)

There is backlash from the Faith though? The Faith can't send troops in to deal with it or anything because they didn't have the power too. Now they do though, and those sparrows are part of the Faith. So it is a possibility that they will actually go deal with Walder. Article is a good read but it seems to be speaking about the show rather than the books. He's also having children as much as he's able though and it does take a lot out of the person who has to give birth. Plus GRRM has loads of women die in childbirth. Walder is noted to have outlived his wives, not divorced them. So I don't see a reason for the Faith to be involved here.

If we are supposed to dislike the Faith then he should have made the other religions more palatable because the Faith has really not got a lot of serious competition. You have R'hlorr with human sacrifice, abnormal painful execution method, extremism and slavery; the Drowned God with human sacrifice, abnormal painful execution method, extremism and slavery; the Black Goat; Dothraki 'religion'; Slaver's Bay religion that promotes slavery and torture; Faceless Men death cult; Craster worshipping the Others with human sacrifice; all the Lovecraft religions; Valyrian religion that presumably endorsed all their atrocities; etc. Then you have the Faith, more tolerant than real life early modern Christianity given they are willing to co-exist with/syncretise what would be considered pagan religions, no history of heresy and associated atrocities; and opposed to human sacrifice and slavery in comparison to the majority of religions in Planetos. The only 'more moral' religions are the really pacifist ones that we see e.g. with the Lhazareen and Naathi, which sort of backfire because they bring more suffering to their followers. Possibly the Rhoynar religion too but we don't know much about that. Old Gods are fine too but they did practice human sacrifice historically. The Faith is sort of being held up as a strawman for Catholicism but it doesn't really work because it is actually so far been way better than the alternatives presented and doesn't possess a lot of the flaws of the real life Catholic church.