Where do you think Jewish people come from?

I don't think you do or you wouldn't have said such riduclous things.
zero analogy between Pakistan and BAngladesh and Gaza adn West Bank.
You also said that Bangladesh became autonomous. it didn't. It became fully independent of Pakistan, at great price, The genocide only stopped when India stepped in.

The question that no one (who doesn’t actually think genocide, either way, is acceptable) can answer (including me) is what would have been a ‘reasonable’ response to 7/10.

I think most (although far from all) abhor what happened on 7/10 and believe Israel needed to respond against Hamas.

I believe most, looking at Gaza now, and the fate of the population, believe that Israel is going too far and is now looking to drive the Palestinians out.

I guess that I personally think that Israel should have sought international support for a conquer and hold operation, with a proper deradicalisation program, and then a two state solution where Hamas was nowhere to be seen. I don’t know how easy (or even possible) that would be though.

There are Jewish people on this thread who are anti him as well. We're not all one extreme or the other. It's just that I don't want to discuss Israeli politics because why should I have to? I've been mostly clarifying matters about Jewish populations in the Middle East on this thread and calling out antisemitism. I'm not on this thread to discuss Israeli politics. I have opinions on it but I don't consider them relevant to a discussion about the history of Jews in the Middle East.

No word of critisism about the actual post then, are you also comfortable with the terminology the poster used?

As an aside, I'm not Israeli and doubt I'd vote for Netanyahu if I were.

I agree and I think a lot of posters (who clearly do follow Netanyahu and his policies and agree with them) are deflecting from the fact he is ruining the global opinion of Israel. Sadly it seems they would rather be repeatedly offended.

I have hidden this thread and all others with these posters because they are seemingly here to agitate, again, rather than ask or listen to opinions as the title suggested it wanted.

I can category confirm I'm not Israeli!

I think that will always be subjective because it depends on what each person deems reasonable. I personally think that the only way to have avoided how Israel responded would have been if the international community immediately imposed crippling sanctions on Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Iran's other proxy terror groups, and Qatar arrested the Hamas leaders. An international task force needed to have made disarming Hamas and rescuing the hostages the priority, showing Israel that it wasn't alone.

The task force could then have shifted into helping those in Gaza build a functioning government, independent of the terrorist groups currently embedded there.

I also think that those expressing support for the attacks in the UK and other countries should have been arrested immediately because it was those celebrations that emboldened so much hatred.

Unfortunately, everyone was playing politics and there were just a lot of empty condolences.

How many of us clearly "follow Netanyahu and his policies and agree with them"? And why does it matter what we think about Israeli politics? Who are the people who would rather be repeatedly offended? Who are "they"? And have you ever tried saying inoffensive things instead of doubling down on things that come across as antisemitic?

Maybe stop trying to make assumptions about people's political opinions just because they're Jewish or believe that the state of Israel should continue to exist.

Looking at the actual casualty figures of the Gaza war, they do skew heavily towards young men. For a war with that level of devastation to infrastructure, the actual civilian casualty rate is not that high.

That doesn't mean that each death of an innocent civilian isn't a tragedy, but to look at the numbers and claim genocide, when the IDF clearly actually went to great lengths to preserve civilian life, is bizarre.
Actually it's not bizarre, it's antisemitism. I've literally seen people on X who believe that Israel killed millions in Gaza. That's the narrative.

@ErroltheSwampDragon if only that had been the global response, so many lives could have been saved. Instead, the first instinct was to have demonstations against Israel, before the massacred bodies were even cold. T-shirts celebrating the paragliders etc.

Do you also take under consideration Jewis people illegally moving Palestinian people away from their homes, in cases of violent attacks on areas under Palestinina rule, or is it not that interesting?

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/21/israeli-settler-attacks-shift-to-heart-of-territory-earmarked-for-palestinian-state

@ErroltheSwampDragon ,

‘I think that will always be subjective because it depends on what each person deems reasonable. I personally think that the only way to have avoided how Israel responded would have been if the international community immediately imposed crippling sanctions on Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Iran's other proxy terror groups, and Qatar arrested the Hamas leaders.

An international task force needed to have made disarming Hamas and rescuing the hostages the priority, showing Israel that it wasn't alone
.
The task force could then have shifted into helping those in Gaza build a functioning government, independent of the terrorist groups currently embedded there.

I also think that those expressing support for the attacks in the UK and other countries should have been arrested immediately because it was those celebrations that emboldened so much hatred.

Unfortunately, everyone was playing politics and there were just a lot of empty condolences.’

With the exception of arresting people with ‘bad thoughts’, I think that is one of the most sensible posts I have read on here for a long time!

Netanyahu, though, never asked for this or gave any of it a chance to happen. It’s totally understandable, given the strength of feeling, but that does not make it right, and part of the reason why he is not really leadership material.

There was no urgency to respond and the fast response actually made the hostages lives worse, and ended with many dying. Building a coalition including Arab nations, which could have been done with pressure from the U.S, would have isolated Iran and her proxies. Although the 9/11 response ultimately turned out to fail (in many ways), at least the U.S didn’t end up totally isolated as it at least attempted to build a coalition.

I also do think this is relevant to this thread. The entire reason for it is to justify current Israeli actions and settlement. Otherwise, we can all use Google and AI to get an anthropological overview of where we Jews originated.

I've read 13 pages into this thread and have to stop. For what it's worth, I think the OP is getting a hard time. I am Jewish and have read her posts as being in support of Jews and the right to an ancestral Jewish homeland.
The OP asked where Jews are thought to be from, I assume because so many shout "Zionists go home" ....Where is that then? As others have pointed out, many Jews intwine self believe with our cultural history and this identify, whether religious or not.
Because of the hideously divisive situation around the Israel/Palestinian conflict, I think many of us identifying as Jewish, are heightened to thinly veiled anti-semitism and of course hyper-vigilant/attuned to it. The fact that antisemitism is relentlessly ongoing and permeates into our every day lives - (go to a pop concert for entertainment/come away with a political lecture, or worse still murdered? Go to a coffee shop - accused of supporting colonial bakery, buy hummus/cultural appropriation/supporting genocide and apartheid?) means we cannot get away from it. Ever.
If you are in favour of a Jewish homeland and support Jews rights to self determine - Zionism - you are a "BAD" Jew. The pressure to be the right kind of Jew never lets up. To be a good Jew you must denounce Israel's right to exist, declare Zionism a dangerous colonialist movement that is hell bent on destroying every Palestinian, agree that we control the media, the banks etc.

The right kind of Jew apparently needs to accept hundreds of rockets being fired at Israel every night for years and years and on multiple boarders, that young people partying at a dance - peace celebration no less - and the families in adjacent Kibbutzim, many of whom worked with/supported their Palestinian neighbours for years should just accept that as a consequence of their 'actions', of wanting to live in Israel.

I am NOT in favour of innocents on any 'side' dying butI know of no other race who is held accountable in the way that Jews are. No other country or nationality that is vilified in the same way.
Ultimately I do not believe the conflict itself is about land. Such a brilliantly effective and efficient propaganda from Hamas, (and amidst the financial support of PIJ, Houthis, Hezbollah and the IRCG )who have recognised that the media is their key to securing their aims and care NOTHING about the Palestinians, merely using them as a scapegoat in achieving their objective - the annihilation of Jews/Israeli's the world over. The 2 state solution seems ever more a distant dream.

Just to clarify, I don't think people should have been arrested for thinking anything. I think they should have been arrested for showing support for terrorists, which is a crime.

Netanyahu certainly has his faults but I don't think we can pretend that if he'd have just asked for help, it would have been provided. Until the international community stops with the empty and focuses on helping civilians on both sides achieve peace in a way that doesn't keep proping up terrorists, I don't think the situation will change. Our current UK government is definitely not helping, indulging in gesture politics and cowardice.

Uhm, what? "No normal person would support Palestinians"? "They raise their kids in a death cult where dying while killing Jews holds the highest glory and respect (and a pension for the family), very few disagree with the idea of wiping the Jews from the earth and doing it as painfully as possible as evidenced on Oct 7th, their literal cause is for genocide!"?!

OP, it's one thing to defend the existence of Jews in Israel. It's a completely different (and completely unnecessary) thing to simultaneously demonise all Palestinians. I mean fucking hell, you talk about Palestinians the same way the antisemites talk about Jews and Zionists. It's so far from ok it's unreal.

There are two types of extremists on Israel threads, and I am ‘fortunate’ to have a friend from each camp in RL, both as extreme and mad as each other, though with polar opposite views.

Maybe it would be useful, from an anthropological perspective, to summarise their characteristics.

Mad left wingers:

Think Israel is the worst country on Earth.
Passionately believe that it IS apartheid South Africa, but even worse (ironically, many are white South Africans).
Believe that 7/10 was a legitimate response from a persecuted people- though often won’t admit to that belief.
Think that Israel should have a truth and reconciliation process AND include the terrorist groups.
Often university educated to a high level in subjects like politics/sociology/international studies and apply the colonial model unquestioningly with Israel as the colonisers.
Argue that Israel shouldn’t necessarily be Jewish but Jews will be protected by some kind of a constitution (yeah right, that worked well in the past).
Don’t really care how real Palestinians suffer as they demand ridiculous maximalist solutions.

Mad right wingers

Passionate and unquestioning support for Israel despite often neither having been there nor being Jewish.
Refer to antisemitism as Jew Hate, although antisemitism has been a good word for centuries.
Dismiss Smotrich and Ben G’vir as ‘bad apples’ and then try to move on as quickly as possible.
Use every past failure to find a two state solution as a reason to not look for one (and, at worst, expel all the Palestinians).
Dismiss all inconvenient facts as having been fake news made up by Jew haters (UN reports, medecin sans frontieres testimony etc).
Ignore the way Israel has deteriorated in every Freedom index, including free press index for the last few years, and dismiss it as Jew hate.
Don’t really care about real Israelis as they have to do national service and endless tours of duty with few breaks and there is a real impact of endless war on the economy.

Please feel free to add to either list!

I'd say both sides are guilty of seeing Israelis and Palestinians only through the lens of the conflict, forgetting they are real people who spend their days deciding on what to make for dinner, stopping their kids misbehaving, talking about what books/TV/food they like etc.

Its somewhat understandable in a debate like this (though not helpful) but unacceptable from the various charities/NGOs/governments that pretend they want peace.

Oops, forgot to add another characteristic of the far right. They invariably refer to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria.

I assume it is also The Gulf of America and Lake America?!

Posted from Londinium, Britannica.

I agree and would go so far to say that Palestinians aren't the most agreeable of 'house guests'.

1.Following the 1967 Six-Day War, the PLO and various Palestinian fedayeen (guerrilla) factions relocated their primary base of operations to Jordan. Over time, these groups established a "state-within-a-state," setting up their own checkpoints, refusing to follow Jordanian law, and attempting to assassinate King Hussein.
In September 1970, after the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked several international civilian aircraft and landed them in Jordan, King Hussein declared martial law. A brutal civil war ensued between the Jordanian Armed Forces and Palestinian militants. By July 1971, Palestinian armed groups were completely defeated and expelled from the country, relocating to Lebanon.

2.After being expelled from Jordan, Yasser Arafat and the PLO established a new headquarters in Lebanon, creating a powerful enclave known as "Fatahland" in the south. Their presence upset Lebanon's fragile multi-religious demographic balance and eroded the central government's authority.

.In 1975, long-standing tensions in Lebanon erupted into a complex civil war. The PLO allied with the Lebanese National Movement (a coalition of leftist and Muslim factions) to fight against the Lebanese Christian militias (the Lebanese Front) and, at various points, clashed directly with the Lebanese Army and invading Syrian forces. The PLO maintained its military dominance in portions of Lebanon until the 1982 Israeli invasion forced them to evacuate to Tunisia.

3.While not an armed insurrection or a military attack initiated on Kuwaiti soil, the Palestinian leadership fundamentally compromised its host country during the Gulf War.
Prior to 1990, Kuwait hosted a highly prosperous community of roughly 400,000 Palestinians.When Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait in 1990, PLO leader Yasser Arafat publicly aligned with Iraq.
Many Kuwaitis viewed this political stance—and instances of local collaboration with Iraqi forces—as a severe betrayal by their guests. Following Kuwait's liberation by a US-led coalition in 1991, the Kuwaiti government and local citizens retaliated through mass deportations and violence, forcing around 300,000 Palestinians out of the country.

So it's not surprising that they haven't made themselves popular by persistently 'biting the hand that feeds them'