Lawyers fall out over Israel-Palestine crisis

_{Hussain ponders the thin line between anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish mobs.}

Law sector workers have become engaged in public spats over the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Dilly Hussain, who was the Business Marketing Director of Deo Volente Solicitors (the firm did not respond to confirm whether he still works at the firm), provoked uproar when he wrote on X that “This is the kind of welcome ALL Israelis should be receiving at the airports of Muslim-majority countries”.

Hussain was commenting on footage of an angry crowd hunting through a terminal in Dagestan for passengers landing on a flight from Tel Aviv.

This is the kind of welcome ALL Israelis should be receiving at the airports of Muslim-majority countries. https://t.co/3JpFRd2jZp
— Dilly Hussain (@DillyHussain88) October 29, 2023

Sections of the crowd, some carrying Palestinian flags, broke through doors in the terminal and ran onto the runway, while others set up checkpoints to locate Jews driving from the airport.

After blowback from X users who accused him of agitating for antisemitic lynch mobs, Hussain stated that “the day apartheid Israel goes to sleep permanently is the day Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea!”

He then added to his original post to describe how he was being targeted because he supported people protesting against Israeli arrivals “not to harm or attack them, but to express their opposition and anger at the occupying Zionist entity’s war crimes”.

In a video to further clarify his position, Hussain blamed a “smear campaign” and said the footage he had commented on didn’t show antisemitism or violence, and that when subsequent clips emerged which did, he had explained that he did not support violence against Jews.

MY RESPONSE TO THE RECENT SMEAR CAMPAIGN BY PRO-ISRAEL MEDIA AND COMMENTATORS. pic.twitter.com/RRAUsi2ndJ
— Dilly Hussain (@DillyHussain88) October 31, 2023

Legal LinkedIn, best known as a place for self-aggrandisement and backslapping, has become rather more fractious as people who joined to promote themselves now rail at their peers for publicly supporting either Palestine or Israel.

A Jewish CMS partner on LinkedIn was taken to task by a Bird & Bird associate for posting a video in which he described the trauma of the Hamas massacre and explained that Israel's response was "not a war about land, it is about our right to exist".

CMS’s Tel Aviv Managing Partner had "no regard for the treatment of Palestinians", said the 2Birds lawyer, who accused him of deleting her other comments.

ROF was contacted by another solicitor who was upset that a DLA Piper partner had reposted a defence of Israel on LinkedIn as the country began its military response, while a Fieldfisher recruiter and a solicitor for the Financial Conduct Authority each promoted a conspiracy theory on LinkedIn implying that Israel faked or exaggerated Hamas’s massacre.

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The crisis represents a messaging challenge for firms, but some have spoken up to condemn antisemitism.

This week 27 of the biggest US firms signed an open letter demanding that law school deans stamp out vandalism, graffiti and “rallies calling for the death of Jews and the elimination of the state of Israel” reported on campuses.

While ROF is not aware of comparable conduct by law students in the UK, it’s been a different story in the States.

One of the open letter’s signatories, Davis Polk, has already withdrawn job offers from two students for their conduct, while Winston & Strawn binned its offer for a NYU student who voiced support for Hamas in a law faculty newsletter.

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Comments

But do you condemn Hamas?

Diversity is our strength!

FOOLS! LinkedIn isn't for discussing politics. LinkedIn is for posting long pointless posts in which you repeatedly say how virtuous, kind and talented you are even though you are horrible to your juniors and do not do any actual work. And don't forget to include a pointless airbrushed photograph with each post!

Look at Dilly Hussain's twitter.

I still can't understand why anyone (in a professional capacity) would speak out about the war - it has no benefit to anyone.

It has been annoying having to unconnect or mute certain individuals.

https://shuddhashar.com/the-anatomy-of-condemnation-politics/

Watched the CMS Partner - with CMS logo and all. He talks about Israeli actions taking "innocent lives" but still stand with Israel. CMS full on supporting a war UNHR is calling a war from.

"But do you condemn Hamas?"

It's so unfair when the (((Zionists))) ask us to do this, isn't it?

Why can't they just let our conspicuous silence over the deaths of Jews go without comment? Do they think that just because we spend hours of our time on social media emoting over the deaths of Palestinian civilians that we might be expected to say just a single line about Jewish, sorry Israeli, ones? As if our silence could possibly say far more than our endless words ever could.

Can't they see that we're busy being concerned about innocent Palestinians and that all we want is for an immediate and compassionate ceasefire so that everyone can get back to the old status quo and Hamas can go back to gearing up to do the whole thing all over again?

Oh, whoops, didn't mean to say the last bit out loud.

"Watched the CMS Partner - with CMS logo and all. He talks about Israeli actions taking "innocent lives" but still stand with Israel."

If you have a plan to eradicate Hamas without affecting a single innocent civilian then I'm sure we're all ears.

As ever, a lot of people saying that the IDF are doing it wrong, but not a lot of people volunteering to pick up a rifle and go clear up Hamas for them.

You want less civilian casualties? Call on Hamas to surrender. We can have those responsible for 07 October in the Hague by this time next year, and nobody needs to suffer anything worse than a papercut.

The two states solution is doomed as extremists on the Palestinian side will not accept the actual deal which might be given them (we know this as that’s what has happened in previous attempts) and in any event it’s unlikely that two states with a total size of wales and a combined population of 20 million would Co-exist peacefully for very long.

If 20 counties agreed to take 100,000 Gazans each then the problem would be solved for ever. That would be a more realistic one-state solution.

“If you have a plan to eradicate Hamas without affecting a single innocent civilian then I'm sure we're all ears.”

On that basis, if there were terrorists anywhere in the UK, you’d be happy for the UK to be mass bombed in the name of “self-defence”?

@Resettlement

What are talking about. Netanyahu has openly talked about supporting Hamas in order to derail a two state solution.

The only workable solution is a two state one. I say “workable” since it’s not a “fair” solution. A fair solution would be to give the Palestinians their land back.

Striking that ROF is publishing some of these comments (given it moderates in advance and has in the past rejected comments I've made that simply (and justifiably) called ROF itself out on minor issues).

re "Resettlement" - plainly extremists on both sides would reject a deal. That doesn't make it the wrong goal, nor does your speculation in any way justify the ludicrous and inflammatory alternative you offer. I mean, why don't we just make the whole country a nature reserve (with Jerusalem as a world city in splendid isolation in the middle should you wish) and move everyone on all sides of this to different parts the moon?

"Legal LinkedIn, best known as a place for self-aggrandisement and backslapping"

^^ nailed it, rof ^^

What a silly billy Dilly is.

People on this chat asking for others to condemn Hamas...Why do you assume anyone even defends them? Do these same people condemn the actions of collective punishment by Israel? Should we preface every conversation with "Do you condemn Israel?"

I don’t preface chats about this with ‘I condemn Israel’ because I don’t.
Hamas went in and murdered hundreds of people. Women, kids. Israel has every right to take military action in response. If Hamas hides in civilian areas and used all the aid provided to it to build tunnels for itself but not for its people, that’s on it, too.

@12:44 - That's the daftest attempt at an analogy I've heard in a long time.

But sure, I'll humour you: if the UK had allowed itself to get to a point whereby a terrorist organisation had taken de-facto control of London, was using its city centre as a base of operations to launch weekly rocket attacks at Lille, with occasional coastal raids into Normandy aimed at butchering French civilians and taking hostages... then yes I'd probably expect the French to shoot back. I don't think it would be realistic to ask them to just put up and take it on the chin forever because of 1066 and all that.

On the other hand, if it was just the usual Islamists blowing themselves up on double-decker buses, at Christmas markets, and Arianna Grande concerts (again), then I'd imagine the British Police could deal with it in the usual way. A bombing campaign would probably be a bit of an overaction to that.

Can you see the subtle difference between the two scenarios?

"People on this chat asking for others to condemn Hamas...Why do you assume anyone even defends them?"

Because they engage in performative wailing over every suggestion of civilian death in Palestine but seem curiously silent about civilian deaths in Israel? Giving a juxtaposition so stark, and so seemingly illogical, as to make objective onlookers curious about the motivations behind it.

If you spend your life crying for one set of people but not another, it's not unreasonable for people to question why.

Do you find those enquiries uncomfortable? Does being asked to condemn Hamas really give you an issue? If so... that's a You problem.

"The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations."

Article 28 of only the 1949 Geneva Convention

@12:44
As a civilian in London you’d be saying please kill me to save me from terrorists - very logical. Where would you flee? Perhaps a safe spot like Manchester where there is no rich risk yet civilians are being wiped out (West Bank).

@14:24 what if Lille had occupied London and brutalised its citizens for 75 years? Would you expect London to “shoot back”? Or would double standards kick in?

"As a civilian in London you’d be saying please kill me to save me from terrorists"

You have misunderstood. It wouldn't be about the French saving Londoners from their government of terrorists.

It would be about the French saving French civilians from being murdered in their homes by those terrorists and removing the possibility of further rocket attacks / armed raids.

Like I say, if London had become a launchpad for rocket attacks on Lille, it would be perfectly understandable for the French government to fire back. They would be doing that to save French lives, not as some benevolent favour to Londoners.

Would you really expect the French to just give a gallic shrug and wait for the next round of attempted murders?

Indeed, said innocent Londoners should probably have seen that state of affairs coming and either (a) done something to prevent London from continuing to be a launchpad for frequent rocket attacks against civilians, or (b) asked someone else to 'save them' from their terrorist overlords some time ago.

All of that assumes that they were 'innocent Londoners' of course, and that they actually disapproved of rocket attacks on Lille, and weren't really cheering said rocket attacks on then dancing in the streets when they succeeded. It would be hard to feel much sympathy for that kind of Londoner getting a dose of what they had wished on others. But I'm sure that you and I agree that's a fanciful scenario and has no relevance to the previously observed behaviour of Gaza's modern day population.

Like I say, it's an imperfect analogy that you've introduced here.

Here’s my very absolutely personal view denying apartheid and calling for war with a CMS logo in the background

Why anyone would post about this issue on LinkedIn I have no idea. Same for the loudmouth morons who post about Republican or Democrats talking points, although it is usually the former. You are going to alienate 1/2 your audience.

The UK is starting to realise it has hundreds of thousands of potential extremists amongst its civilian population who have the same mindset as terrorist organisations.

Well - whose side are you on, then? The vicious killers who would murder defenceless families in their beds or the vicious killers who would drop bombs in the heart of residential areas and murder defenceless families in their beds?

Almost everyone: "neither of the above".

@16:42 - but if the French were really 'occupying' London then there would be no need to shoot rockets at Lille would there? Wouldn't London be full of armed Frenchmen doing the occupying? How is this fantastical version of London you want us to imagine simultaneously 'occupied' by the French but bereft of Frenchmen actually occupying it?

Why the need for your imaginary Londoners to murder civilians several dozen kilometres away with no apparent military target?

Similarly, if London really were 'occupied' by the French then why would it have been governing itself for the best part of two decades and living, without apparent protest from its inhabitants, under a government that actively called for the genocide of the French? Would the 'occupiers' really allow that? It sounds a bit far fetched. I'd have thought that an 'occupied' territory would be governed by the supposed 'occupiers', wouldn't it?

It really is an odd kind of 'occupying' the French are doing in this ill-fitting analogy that you've dreamed up here. It's the kind of topsy turvy fantasy that it's hard to imagine anyone thinking critically entertaining for long.

Why is it easier to pick on the CMS partner explaining the terror situation rationally rather than the support for anti semitic attacks made by Dilly? Jews Dont Count?