Dear George

 George,

We had a verbal agreement acknowledging our differences regarding Israel and Gaza and agreed to leave one another at arm’s length.

I have honoured this understanding and refrained from interjecting on your posts, many of which I deeply disagree with.

However, you persist in commenting on my Facebook threads in relation to this matter, and in so doing have caused offence to me and to some of my friends. You have now escalated things on my thread, going so far as to opine that I am a fool.

In general, I leave my own social media stream open to all comments. I believe that it is one's own words that ultimately pass the most accurate judgment on what one writes. However, I would ask that we remain courteous, fact-check our claims, or at the very least provide sources. I personally aspire to a self-imposed code of conduct on social media platforms:

https://smallislandman.blogspot.com/2025/06/netiquette-rules-for-social-media.html

Let’s try to keep things polite.

You continue to cause offence to me and my friends (some of whom are Jewish) on my Facebook threads. I consider your comment,  "Who is this moron? 🤔🙄",  in response to a post from Rory Stewart (source: https://tinyurl.com/27aadlc6) deeply inappropriate. Are there not more constructive ways to engage in debate than through insults?

For the record, Rory Stewart OBE FRSGS FRSL is an Oxford-educated diplomat-turned-politician, explorer-author, humanitarian leader, academic, broadcaster, and influential public intellectual with significant political experience and firsthand involvement in post-conflict Middle Eastern settings.

By contrast, you have chosen to post a video from Tommy Robinson (https://tinyurl.com/2ams9cjb), a British far-right, ultranationalist activist and founder of the English Defence League (EDL), a group known for its anti-Islam rhetoric. Robinson has a history of criminal convictions, including for violence, fraud, and contempt of court. He has also been associated with various nationalist and anti-immigration causes. You would be hard-pressed to distinguish his rhetoric from that of the BNP or Greece’s own Golden Dawn.

It is ironic that you would choose Robinson as an advocate of your cause, since he is also a dyed-in-the-wool antisemite who has, on multiple occasions, employed conspiratorial and offensive remarks about Jews,  remarks consistent with long-standing antisemitic narratives.

Source: https://chatgpt.com/share/6870d401-3698-8008-84d6-24e7e66eb70c

In another post, you cited ancient coins with Hebrew inscriptions as evidence that “Jews were here first”,  as though that were an indisputable justification for Zionism.

The argument that "we were here first" is one of the most dangerous and morally fraught claims a group can make to justify present-day political domination. History is not a deed of ownership; it is a record of human movement, conflict, displacement, and adaptation. If historical presence alone justified modern sovereignty, then most of the world would need to be undone: Europeans would need to vacate the Americas, Australia, and much of southern Africa; Turks would need to return to Central Asia; and every inch of land would become a battlefield of ancestral grievances. Even the ancient Jewish kingdoms of Israel rest atop an even older patchwork of Canaanite, Philistine, and other civilizations who once called the same soil home.

To invoke ancient coins, scriptures, or archaeological remnants as proof of exclusive modern rights is to weaponize memory in service of power. It is also profoundly selective. No one argues, for instance, that Rome should reclaim Britain, or that Nordic peoples should reclaim parts of France based on Viking settlement. We rightly understand that civilizations evolve, peoples migrate, and rights must be rooted in justice,  not mythology.

Indeed, the “we were here first” logic is often found in the playbook of settler-colonial ideologies and ethno-nationalist movements,  from white supremacists claiming America as theirs alone, to ultra-nationalists in Europe justifying the exclusion of minorities. It prioritizes blood and soil over coexistence and shared humanity.

The question we should ask is not who came first, but what kind of society do we want to build now,  one that honors human rights, equality, and peace, or one that perpetuates cycles of conquest disguised as birthright? Clinging to ancient claims as moral cover for modern oppression leads not to justice, but to perpetual war.

It seems that for you, there is nothing Israel or the IDF are doing, or can do, that is not justified. You promote an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, which will, in my opinion, in the context of a centuries-old conflict, only secure a future of eternal bloodshed and suffering for everyone.

George, your advocates and arguments are demonstrably aligned with right-wing extremism. I could not condemn your position more effectively than you have by the choices you make yourself.

I ask again that on my social media threads, we keep debate measured and polite. Addressing my friends, strangers to you, with terms like "sweetie," and using condescending language or laughing emojis on content depicting human suffering, is inappropriate.

I have assiduously avoided commenting on your posts because I see no opening for reasoned debate or any prospect of changing your mind. Your posts make clear that your pro-Israel stance extends to finding no fault or criticism in Israel’s response to the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023. I do not agree with that position, but I respect your right to hold it.

My position is this: the original attack by Hamas was an atrocity. Israel and Israelis have a right to a peaceful future. However, I consider Israel’s response to be disproportionate and needlessly cruel. I also believe it will catalyse antisemitism, something that, as a hereditary Jew, I am loathe to see.

Since the original Hamas attack, the most reliable and conservative estimates show around 1,300 Israeli deaths, compared to around 60,000 Palestinian deaths. A ratio of nearly fifty to one.

As we speak, Netanyahu is escalating this cruelty, proposing a highly militarised “humanitarian city” in Rafah, capable of holding some 600,000 Palestinians under tight control.

Israeli and international legal experts see this as a violation of humanitarian law,  specifically forced displacement and arbitrary detention. Human rights advocates, UN agencies, and global media are unified in their concern that this strategy amounts to internment or even ethnic cleansing.

This initiative marks a dangerous escalation. What is being presented as protection and aid is widely regarded as forced internment backed by military control, crossing clear legal and moral boundaries in the eyes of the international community.

Finally, in response to your comment:

"...but your persistence to keep supporting the term genocide which is equal to pledging allegiance to Hamas"

Equating my use of the term genocide with allegiance to Hamas is not only false,  it is inflammatory and irresponsible. I stand for international law and human rights, not for any militant group.

I must also point out that repeatedly posting accusatory comments on my own threads,  in an attempt to police or shame my choice of language,  crosses a line. It does not read as dialogue. It reads as an attempt to control the conversation. And frankly, it feels like bullying.

You are welcome to disagree with my views, but I ask that you do so respectfully,  and without misrepresenting my intentions or affiliations.

To clarify:

I am not pro-Israel. I am not pro-Hamas, pro-Palestine, or pro-Iran, or pro-British. In fact, I do not pledge blind allegiance to any nation, flag, or religion,  including my own. What I am is pro-human rights. Every person on this Earth deserves the chance to live in peace and safety.