To think that this really can't be true about young people's thoughts about Israel?

well parts of (1 min54 seconds to 3 mins 56 seconds) says a lot about young people's understanding

or perhaps this

or this

or

or maybe they should see this

to understand why Israel will do anything to protect its people.

I was wondering when you'd come up with that loophole.

And yet people are very aware which the Jewish state is when they want to accuse it of antisemitic conspiracy theories like controlling the media or other countries' governments.

They're also very aware when they choose to compare it to the Nazis.

Nothing has convinced me more that 'don't compare the Israeli government to the Nazis' belongs on that definition of antisemitism than how often people on MN have rushed to make that comparison. It started off with calling the situation in Gaza a Holocaust straight after October 7th. They kept doing it, so frequently, that it couldn't be an accident or coincidence. And so it has continued.

Antisemites love comparing Jews to Nazis, because it is specifically hurtful to Jews. Bear that in mind when you defend it.

“Why did you lead him on it’s what you were wearing!!” - You
Israel had no right to respond in that manner and blaming Hamas for Israel’s actions is shocking behaviour

So let me understand your analogy @crispychickenwings … Hamas is the woman wearing the short dress and Israel is the rapist?

I can’t believe I’ve just read that. Now that I find utterly and completely shocking given the actual rape and murder of young innocent women in the Oct 7th attack. Actually shot dead in the head while being gang raped.

Here is the UN agreeing there was evidence of Hamas using sexual violence in its attack.

To be clear, I am not condoning violence against innocent civilians. I am asking why Hamas hides behind its fellow citizens and why Hamas continues to bomb Isreal and why Hamas has not and did not release Israeli citizens it kidnapped.

The maps shown below throw a hand grenade on the entire edifice of international human rights and the Geneva Convention. Basically we conquered land in 1948 and in subsequent wars. We gave some of it back for peace but maintained the exclusion and marginalisation of millions of people who want to go back to their homes. So Russia should keep the Donbas and continue with its effort to reconquer Ukraine as there is literally nothing to prevent us returning to a time of conquest and expulsion as the norm based on who has the biggest guns. Fabulous.

Well then maybe Israel should now have a permanent ceasefire, but they won't will they. We have all seen this play out in real time on our phones and laptops and there is no denying the images we have seen. So can you blame the young feeling the way they do, I certainly don't. They are angry and they want change and I truly hope that is what we will see. That Israel, U.S, UK, Germany and France and some other Europeans keep out of other countries. We are sick of this colonial mindset, taking what doesn't belong to them. Starting wars to control non western countries. Trying to teach the world that white = good and black/ brown = bad. These kids don't want to live life like that anymore and I applaud them, change is desperately needed.

Another one trying to draw a false equivalence between the Troubles and the war in Gaza! 🤦‍♂️

No, the UK never needed to bomb Northern Ireland because PIRA never, ever had the weapons capabilities of Hamas. Indeed, PIRAs murder count over 38 years is easily dwarfed by Hamas' atrocities on 7th October 2023!

Now, that's not to downplay how awful PIRA was, but it's stating a fact that PIRA was never the kind of threat to the UK that Hamas is to Israel.

I mean, the UK never once needed an Iron Dome to deal with PIRAs rockets since they never had that kind of weapon.

Besides vastly different weapons capabilities, Northern Ireland was AND remains an integral part of the UK with British citizens who wanted to stay in the UK.

Gaza, on the other hand, is NOT an integral part of Israel and there are no Jewish people living in Gaza other than still living hostages taken there by Hamas and Gazan civilians.

Here's a more accurate map of the region that also shows Israel have a history of land for peace deals. You can see the concession of land that led to a normalisation of relations with Egypt.

The 1947 Arab leaders weren't interested in this as the later Three Noes Of Khartoum proved, the PLO wasn't interested in this until the 1990s when they recognised Israel's right to exist and that led to the rise to power of Hamas over time.

And Hamas isn't interested in land for peace. They want ALL the region of Palestine. Some point to their 2017 "charter" and claim Hamas want the 1967 borders. That belief is fundamentally incorrect as Hamas leaders made it clear the 2017 document did NOT contradict their 1988 charter.

For Hamas, this doesn't end unless/until the State of Israel is destroyed. And Hamas has massive support amongst Palestinians in Gaza & West Bank.

It's of concern that many, many Westerners appear to be unable to understand what war looks like, what is permitted in the fight against Hamas, what security looks like and so on.

Recognition of Israel AND the degradation of Hamas as a military terrorist force are absolutely integral parts of the Middle East peace process.

Security and counter-terrorism efforts absolutely has a role to facilitate that. It is this that leads to dialogue between opposing sides.

Not the other way round.

Young people see things very black and white, and are easily guided into an opinion. As there has been a lot of marches every week in London, they get most of their information from visuals. Israel haven’t been doing many marches. My son agrees with the Palestinian side of things, but focuses on the marches and the banners, without looking at what precipitated these bombings. I disagree with him, I’m very much on the side of Israel, and sometimes we will have discussions about the situation, but are respectful of each other’s opinions.

I believe there was also some suggestion that the Transjordan king was playing both sides in an attempt to gain more territory for the kingdom. History is bloody messy.

I for one do not support the thinking that Israel should not exist. It is there now nothing we can do about it but what we need to see is a safe space for both Israelis and Palestinians.

This. I have some extended family living out there but also had a grandfather who served there in the 40s and was very openly unimpressed about the total displacement of the Palestinians who lost their homes.

Pogroms were NOT the major cause of Jewish migration from Arab countries. This is another Israeli founding myth. Read Avi Schlaim and even Wikipedia. Despite the concerted efforts of Zionists to get Arab Jews expelled from North African countries and Yemen- they weren't. Many didn't leave until 1950s/1960s and even 1970s.

Sorry are you saying that a deliberate plan to ethnically cleanse land via massacres and expulsions and repopulate it with people of the Jewish faith and then maintain their majority status through racist policies should be normalised because your ancestors were also ethnically cleansed and somehow the timing wasn't related to the Second World War???

I think the Israelis have lost a huge amount of international goodwill with how they have approached this. Huge. Its been a humanitarian disaster.

You're not, great. Who is? You said people are on this thread so who?

If someone wants the destruction of a while country thats disgusting, I don't care what they've seen on social media. If someone who said that they saw images of October 7th and now want all of Gaza to be destroyed I doubt you'd be defending them.

@CanadaNotAMum you are misrepresenting me, I have at each stage made it clear that pogroms were the major cause of Jewish migration from other Middle Eastern States.

It was you that repeated the "told to leave or chose to leave" thing which is used by Israeli supporters to dismiss the right to return.

I really don't know how this situation can be resolved without the descendants of those forced out during the Nabka being given the right to return as well as some form of compensation for the land seized.

This is why a truth and reconciliation committee would be very useful,

Aren’t you the one who’s son didn’t know Oct 7th happened? Not being rude but you might be better off trying to educate him rather than wasting time arguing with trolls on the internet.

@mommyisbest my grandparents and great grandparents were also expelled from villages. So what? It happened a long time ago and was not during and after the second world war. Those people were not born there and most will never have even visited.

It is the height of supremacism to deny 5-6 million people who call themselves Palestinians and who know the names and locations of the villages their grandparents and great grandparents were expelled from their story. Moreover you're deliberately ignoring Illan Pappe's seminal work The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine which uses Israeli archived documents to describe how the Zionist movement plotted the mass expulsion from 1920s onwards and then executed it.

Well I for one am not and there are millions like me, anyone with a heart would not want to see any slaughter of innocents on both sides. I for one do not support the thinking that Israel should not exist. It is there now nothing we can do about it but what we need to see is a safe space for both Israelis and Palestinians.
As for the younger generation wanting to see a destruction of Israel, its because they are seeing a destruction of Gaza, created by Hamas and the Israelis and the Palestinians are caught up in the middle. This is what they are seeing on social media. Its up to Israeli government now to change the narrative but they won't, not as long as they are being funded by the U.S.

Just to add, lived in the spot but also didn't actually always own the land. Who should they pay rent to going forward?

Not sure about vast majority, but I definitely think a significant number were either driven out or chose to leave to save themselves, yes. As I said, the exact same reasons Jews left the Arab world. Life was no longer tenable for many, so they didn't have much choice but to leave, while others like my uncle had to literally flee on the back of a camel because he was on a list of people to be hanged for the crime of being Jewish.

I don't understand why you won't just accept the similarities in circumstances, why you're so determined to minimise everything to do with Jewish suffering. Minimising Jewish suffering isn't going to make life better for Palestinians.

Self-combust? What does that mean?

So who should be the ones going round knocking on doors in Tel Aviv, telling the people who live there they have to leave and their house now belongs to the descendants of the Palestinian family who lived on this spot 80 years ago?

@MyMumIsBetterThanYours So you agree the vast majority of Palestinians who left in the Nabka were drive out by Jewish militias in contravention of the partition plan? That this was a war crime.

Thank you.

Who exactly is happy to see thr slaughter of innocents?

The thread is not about young people supporting Palestine, it'd about young people thinking Israel shouldn't exist. I've seen hundreds of posts supporting Palestine that didn't get deleted.

Just to add to this - Arab leaders thought they'd win the war so told Palestinians to leave so they could go in, kill the enemy and then everyone could return. They were doubly keen on Palestinians leaving so that there would also be fewer people working the land, helping the economy grow etc. They wanted to hit them from multiple directions.