Be aware of misinformation seen regarding Palestine

@Iwantcakeeveryday "No, some of us just don't support terrorists and the brutalisation of women and can see that there are no good guys in this conflict. None" -are you really lumping the whole of Gaza's population into that camp, who are bearing the greatest burden of the conflict?

No, some of us just don't support terrorists and the brutalisation of women and can see that there are no good guys in this conflict. None.

I should have paid closer attention to your thread title, I mistakenly thought you were starting a thread about misinformation on the entire conflict, but you're not are you. Your post here shows clearly your agenda. Those people were victims of a terrorist organisation and to blame Israel is despicable. Hamas brutally massacred, raped and tortured them and are probably still doing so to any that remain alive.

Let's not be coy here. Certain people were celebrating the massacre, rapes and burnings of innocent people (including babies and disabled people) way before any retaliation simply because they were Israelis.

This is how I feel too, let alone the open celebrations of 7 October in the streets.

As you can see, though, MN is overrun with posters who will insist it was all perfectly justified, unlike Israel's response.

I'm not Jewish or Israeli, by the way... just allergic to bullying.

Well I think it is beyond insensitive to march after what happened to Israelis on the 7th, to step up the marches after that is just wrong. Where are the marches for the victims of Hamas? Having watched some videos of interviews with survivors, I feel very angry at the one sided response by protesters in the west- as if we ourselves didn't respond to our own terrorism incidents with war. Who the fuck are we to tell any other nation what to do with terrorists?

The PSC has been campaigning for Palestine for over 40 years, so of course the marches have been taking place since before October the 7th.They did not begin as a response.

The media didn't report on previous marches as they weren't deemed newsworthy. The recent protests are on a far bigger scale - big enough that they cannot be ignored.

Welcome to the internet. Its frankly quite scary how readily some people believe without question stuff that's been posted on social media or even by news outlets. It's tricky though because to disbelieve everything renders it all pointless, I'd say build up a picture through various sources, ask who is posting it and whether they're likely to have bias etc. On each and every side and in each and every topic.

Of course not. But to start marches after that terrible day, makes me think quite differently than you do about them.

@whatswrongwiththeworldddd but the marches started before Israel responded to October 7th. I find it hard to understand them given they began as a response to October 7th.

@Trulywonderful the vast majority of the 300,000 people marching were doing so to encourage our government to support a ceasefire.

If I have read your post correctly, you believe that they shouldn’t have done so.

So what do you think should be done about the situation that Palestinian civilians are dealing with?

Marches and protests have always attracted a small number of extremists who have their own agenda. The police should deal with them appropriately. But that should not stop the majority from exercising their right to peaceful and legitimate protest, which is what the vast majority are doing. Don't forget there were an estimated 300,000 people were at the protests in London on Saturday - a tiny minority (who are obviously more likely to be photographed and end up on social media than the families, older people etc. who were there to support peace) were expressing hateful views.

Sorry not the same at all

The Gazens are help captive by there own birth place and politics of the area. Many do not have a choice about those things and no way to change them

Marchers have a choice about protesting on marches that have an ex Hamas member and some well known Jew haters organising it. They also could easily on mass remove hate signs from antisemitic idiots or handover people to the police. Protesters should not march unless they understand what they are marching for but as we have seen most are laughing smiling and out for a jolly. Therefore having seen this myself in London the marches are mostly one big bad faith actor as the saying goes.

It's not a comparing game. It doesn't make antisemitism any less heinous.

The rise in racism has been on the uprise since 9/11, 7/7 and more so since Brexit. When you are called out for the colour of your skin, spat at, abused in the street or supermarket, your kids have terrorists comment directed at them, you worry for your elderly parents going out alone, have to remind your kids that if they are stopped and searched to know what to say because they will be the one picked out in a group by the police, have to deal with insidious racism in the work place, have to collectively apologise for each and every terrorist threat or action reported in the news as if you are personally responsible - because you know....all Muslims.

I'd say 90% of people of Muslim people/POC in the UK have had one or more of these thing happen to them. It doesn't matter where you work, how you speak - it all comes down to the fact that you are always othered.

So please tell me how much of this have you personally experienced?

The Islamophobia and racism on these threads is rife.

So all of those apologists constantly repeating "but Hamas" think about how Palestinian people have been living like this, and probably worse, for the past 75 years.

Going back to the original thread, AllSides is quite a useful site that assesses the potential bias of information. If you search "Hamas" for example, various news stories are listed with indications of whether their source leans left, centre or right.
https://www.allsides.com/search?search=hamas

The fact-check source Snopes is rated as leaning slightly left:
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/snopes

Reuters Fact Check is rated as centre:
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/reuters-fact-check-media-bias

Mind you the way information is handled nowadays, and with the advent of AI (including digitally manipulated imagery), anything is possible! You can't bullshit the bullshitters! AllSides, for all I know, could be run by militant propagandists 😉

This is a report by AP News about misinformation. This news agency is well regarded.

Here are the first two paragraphs to the link below:

“Misinformation about the latest Israel-Hamas war is thriving on social media platforms, where misrepresented video footage, mistranslations and outright falsehoods often crowd out real reporting from the conflict.
In recent weeks, users have pushed false claims that “crisis actors” are staging scenesof carnage and that U.S. Marines are flooding in to fight on the ground in Gaza.

Here is a closer look at the latest misinformation spreading online — and the facts.”

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-fact-check-e829d1dddcc2dad0f5f99cf62ef353ad

It’s almost as if people scan through the hundreds of thousands of marchers to find the wankers in an attempt to discredit the actual purpose of the marches.

pushing the peace march narrative

What do you mean by this? Why wouldn't people claim they are marching for peace if that is what they are doing?

I have seen some pretty shocking antisemitic sentiments expressed by a minority of "peace" activists but I don't think they are views shared by the majority of the millions around the world who have marched for peace.

Lumping them all together because of a minority of bad actors is the same as insisting all Palestinians are terrorists and all Israelis support Netanyahu's extreme right wing government, which is clearly not true.

I don't think we should ignore them or pretend it isn't happening but it's unreasonable to think they represent the majority of people protesting.

Yep videos from various marches over the past month available online plus featured in media articles. Yet some people have selected memory about it. Amazing how blinkered people can be when they have internal prejudice and are pushing the peace march narrative