Europe

497 readers

280 users here now

Europe community on dbzer0. Intended to be a place to discuss European news, politics, or just general topics from a European perspective. Since this is on dbzer0 expect the community to lean more leftist-anarchist but a wide range of views are accepted here (within reason).

Rules:

1. No Bigotry or Hate Speech

Any forms of Homophobia, Transphobia, Queerphobia, Racism, or Ableism will be met with swift and harsh action and will not be tolerated here whatsoever. Bigots will be banned immediately on-sight. This includes apologia of it. Trying to be politely or intellectually bigoted i.e. "Just asking questions" won't be tolerated.

2. No Zionism

Any forms of Zionism or Zionist rhetoric will not be tolerated here, this includes Zionist apologia, accusations of antisemitism towards anti-Zionists, or blatant denial or downplaying of the genocide towards Palestinians. Any attempt to uphold or prop up the IHRA definition of antisemitism, will be treated as Zionism. Anyone engaging in Pro-Zionist sentiment or apologia will be actioned in accordance with its severity.

Note: Trying to find loopholes or whataboutery to see what is or isn't genocide denial or Zionism will be treated as a violation of this rule. Don't test us.

3. Stay Civil

Please maintain civil discourse in the community. Do not engage in arguments with others, name-calling, or insults. Note that calling out bigotry or Zionism is not considered an insult. In heated arguments users are encouraged to or even required to disengage failure to do so will result in mod action.

4. No Misinformation

Spreading of misinformation intentionally in this community is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Spreading misinformation hurts the credibility of the community and can mislead people sometimes in dangerous ways. Users who intentionally post misinformation as articles, comment answers, or in attempt to win arguments will be actioned swiftly.

Note: This includes Russian and Chinese propaganda. Users with a history of such posting will be banned on sight.

5. No AI Content

Please do not post articles or content primarily created using generative AI. Generative AI content may contain misinformation or be lower quality and thus is discouraged. Posts and comments featuring it will be removed. However this community does not allow or tolerate Anti-AI trolling or hostility and users who engage in such behavior will be actioned for it, additionally Anti-AI trolling violates Rule 3 and often Rule 4 so it is generally unacceptable already.

Note: Rules 1 & 2 may be subject to preemptive mod action due to their severity, and they apply to a user's entire post history. Not just this community.

founded 3 months ago

MODERATORS

MysticMushroom1776@lemmy.dbzer0.com

Grainne@lemmy.dbzer0.com

haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com

Sunshine@lemmy.ca

Dystopia UK: Genocidal RAF Squadron Targeted by Palestine Action is Owned by a Hedge Fund (www.craigmurray.org.uk)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by misk@sopuli.xyz to c/europe@lemmy.dbzer0.com

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 5 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The author of this article is a silly and he should feel very silly.

Once more, with feeling:

British air-to-air refuelling tankers use the British drogue system. Israel uses the US fixed-boom system. The two are utterly incompatible. It is physically impossible for RAF tankers to refuel Israeli planes. And if they were somehow magically doing so, (Perhaps an airman hanging on for dear life with a hosepipe) they wouldn’t be based in Brize Norton, hundreds of miles away, when the RAF have a perfectly good base on Cyprus, which is - for those, like Craig Murray who evidently skived off Geography for a smoke behind the bike shed - closer to Iran than Oxfordshire.

And why they would need to is beyond me, given that Israel has its own fleet of air-to-air refuelling tankers. They even hook up with Israeli planes. Which British planes don’t. In case you missed that.

Besides this, the private ownership of the Voyager tankers was known to anyone who [checks notes] paid attention to the RAF’s own press releases when they procured the contract. And indeed any other time when they became newsworthy, such as in British media reporting about Air Force Boris a few years ago.

This article has a premise based on a rookie falsehood that would have been extremely easy to fact-check, and delivers no new information into the public domain.

There is plenty to criticise without descending to this attention-seeking hackery which merely muddies the waters and drains away credibility from those who have legitimate concerns.

[–] huppakee@feddit.nl 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thanks for debunking this. The article also mentions "the active RAF involvement in the Genocide in Gaza", do you think the RAF isn't involved at all? Or just not with air-to-air refuelling tankers?

Palestine Action’s excellent act of resistance in vandalising this Hedge Fund Air Force has brought all of this to our attention. Which is yet a further reason to be grateful to Palestine Action.

Do you think the people behind that organization wrongly picked their target?

[–] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The RAF has two Shadow R1 planes that conduct daily sorties near Gaza, but not in its airspace. These are surveillance planes and the British government claims they are solely tasked with gathering intelligence around Hamas-held hostages. They are flown from RAF Akrotiri, a base in Cyprus.

There are questions as to what sort of intelligence is being shared with Israel, and the use to which that intelligence is being put. There is also the suspicion that the RAF flights are being used to circumvent bilateral ceasefire provisions around reducing Israeli surveillance flights during hostage release periods, and that the intelligence is being used to identify targets for assassination and spree shootings. Some see this intelligence sharing as collusion with genocide or war crimes. There were two British hostages, one being killed in an Israeli operation and the other being released. The British presence is therefore, some feel, unwarranted.

The organisation very much picked the wrong target and methodology in my opinion. Nothing at Brize Norton is being used in connection with Gaza, and not only did they cause significant damage to military assets, they humiliated the defence establishment by publicly showing how easy it was to gain access to those planes. The government has no choice really but to throw the book at them, lest any group or foreign power with a score to settle decide they want to copy them. There is also the background of increased military threat from Russia and China, and the pressure from the US that NATO members pull their weight. They kind of overachieved and underachieved at the same time.

[–] huppakee@feddit.nl 1 points 1 month ago

Thanks for giving an extensive answer, wish I could give you more than one upvote in return. I feel there is so much misinformation it gets harder to trust media. But also activist aren't always trustworthy, this seeming to prove that once more.

[–] schmorpel@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 month ago

Any dystopian fiction we could possibly imagine is utopian in comparison with the things actually happening. Please bring on some real life hunger games and 1984 for people to relax a little from what is going down!