Terrible but not surprised - Jewish community under threat

even if some Palestinians took issue with being dispossessed in the 40s, at what point do you draw a line under it? The perceived injustice of what happened to your great grandfather is not justification for raping and murdering people who weren’t alive in the 40s. as said above, you don’t see Jews raping and murdering Germans for the crimes of their great grandparents against them.

There is no other situation where I could ever conceive of rape, murder and mutilation of 1,400 men, women and children being ignored and/or dismissed in this way.

Again, something isn’t quite right.

Your last point presupposes the land was Palestinian? Isn’t the issue that Palestine itself was only fairly recently created and Judaism and its origins in that land predate Arab occupation. It also suggests that Israel exists at the exclusion of Palestinians when a large proportion are Arabs (as well as other religions and races). Israel does not depend on the suppression of Palestinians? It depends on suppressing ongoing terrorist attacks by Palestinians who disagree with Israel existing. But this is what seems to be so often confused, people focus on the controls on the border for example but don’t ask why? They do not focus on why Israel has to do this; they do not ask why Egypt does the same.

even if some Palestinians took issue with being dispossessed in the 40s, at what point do you draw a line under it? The perceived injustice of what happened to your great grandfather is not justification for raping and murdering people who weren’t alive in the 40s. as said above, you don’t see Jews raping and murdering Germans for the crimes of their great grandparents against them.

Isn't the rationale for marching to put pressure on government who allow arms to be sold to Israel while the IDF are killing thousands, destroying whole cities, and displacing millions? The government is in a position to put some diplomatic pressure on Netanyahu, while they obviously haven't got the same ability to put diplomatic pressure on groups like Hamas.

Compare it to the war in Ethiopia where many thousands of civilians have also been killed in recent years, there was no marching for that but one big difference is that the UK is not (currently) selling arms to them. Still, I think we can all agree that who gets international sympathy is not evenly distributed.

But you ask a good question about "what if it happened on our shores", and this has actually happened in British history several times. Israel as a state is dependent on the suppression and dispossession of land from the Palestinians, that's a foundational and ongoing aspect of the nation, not just something that happened in the 40s. Figures who resisted similiar long and successful occupations in Britain, like Boudicca, Alfred the Great, Hereward, are often considered heroic (though many of them failed).

Yes why doesn’t every black person murder all the white people as revenge for apartheid and slavery and colonialism? Is it ok for me to kill all Russians or all Iranians because I disagree with the conduct of their state?

shall we call to eliminate Every person and dismantle every single country that has colonial roots? Palestinians would have to accept this includes them as Jews would argue they are the original colonisers, not the Jewish people who originate from that land.

it’s all absurd. The Hamas propoganda machine uses the ‘stop killing babies’ trope as a veil for the very very different issue which is the dislike for Israel existing at all. How Israel conducts its defence against terrorism is one question.
whether Israel has a right to exist another.

when you March for ‘free Palestine’ you are agreeing that what they are calling for is the land being ‘free from Jews’. Israel hasn’t occupied Gaza since 1945 and has no intention of doing so. That’s not the issue for Hamas, the issue for them is Israel ‘occupying’ Israel. They do not accept and have never accepted a two state solution. The only solution for Hamas is the final one.

many people do not understand what they’re marching for; they see children suffering and just want it to stop. That’s why they March, but they don’t see they’re being used. Used by people who despise them.

I would not have seen or said this in my 20's or 30's.

This is my experience. I have also changed my mind on this.

The UN has issued more resolutions against Israel, than all other member states combined - including Iran, North Korea, Russia, Sudan etc.

Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, the only place in the Middle East where you can be a gay Muslim, living openly, is the place that has received the most human rights condemnations compared to any other country in the Middle East, or even the world.

Something isn’t quite right about that.

'being shipped up by Gaza?'

Do you mean the genocide of innocent children and people that have nothing to do with Hamas.

It was horrific what happened on 7th October, there is no doubt about that. I do sense a feeling that you do not appreciate there are children being starved right now, no medical supplies and millions displaced and living in inhumane conditions.

But it is not genocide, it’s war.

The problem is that most people are seeing war for the first time because of Tik Tok, Instagram etc and a lot of people have never though deeply about or actually studied enough to know what wars are like.

People are seeing the things that have always been endemic to war for the first time and they are having a human reaction to it. They are seeing collateral damage for the first time, they are seeing dead children for the first time.

In reality, ever single war that we look back on in history (and those which we understand to have been completely necessary i.e. the American Civil War, WW2 etc), all these wars had everything that we are seeing in Gaza x 100, but we look back on those wars as wars, and not genocide, because we never had the emotional reaction of seeing war in action, in real time and seeing the cost of war via Tik Tok and Instagram. Even journalists and reports cannot capture the horror of war in the way that social media has been able to.

Unfortunately, war is necessary - history has proven that. I do think this war is necessary. We fought in WW2 to prevent fascism and the horror that was the Nazi’s and their war machine from reaching our shores and destroying our way of life. And we would absolutely do the exact same thing again if we were at threat from a fascist, religious, totalitarian regime like Israel is. No doubt about it.

What do you think were the factors and events that led up to this? And how do you believe that these factors and events can be managed?

I'm not saying I believe this, but a lot of the chat I'm seeing on X and even Reddit now is focussing on immigration policies as one answer to that.

What are you asking here? I want to give you the benefit of the doubt but it sounds like you mean, "Who is to blame for terrorists planning an attack on Jews in Manchester?" When surely the answer to that is the terrorists themselves.

Incidentally my German Jewish DGM lost several members of her family in the Holocaust, including one of her own children, and as far as I'm aware never contemplated returning to Germany after the war to shoot a load of innocent civilians going about their business.

I'm not a military strategist but if Israel wanted revenge (which is feels like they wanted more than they wanted the hostages back) then, God, even a month of that kind of onslaught they launched would have been enough. They could have stopped there and said, and there'll be worse than that to come if you don't surrender and give back the hostages.

That's kind of what has been happening though, there have been constant ceasefire negoations and Hamas still isn't for surrendering or handing the hostages back. So unfortunately it wasn't "enough" in the sense you mean.

Apologies for derail, this is exactly the problem though. Any threat against UK Jewish people just gets derailed back to the Israel situation with the subject (or sometimes blatant text) being that this is a justification.

I can see what you’re saying; but what if Israel isn’t looking for revenge and instead is trying to defend itself from future attacks? If strategically this means accepting Hamas needs to be demilitarised and eliminated then how is this achieved when they have embedded themselves in society?

If someone was shooting at your family, holding a child in front of them as a shield, would you let them kill your children or have to accept the innocent child must die to save your own? It’s basic philosophical questions that have no easy answer.

I agree Israel has managed this situation so poorly, disastrous PR for a country that is the victim. But I wonder how much of that is on them and how much is because so many have been so willing to accept Hamas / anti Jewish propoganda ?

Yes imagine if we blamed every single Palestinian person for what Hamas did on 7/10?

in fact imagine if we blamed every single Muslim.

is that ok?

Sorry but totally disagree with you - these marches are EXACTLY why anti semitism is rising and attacks are increasing. Your refusal to accept the connection is a huge part of the problem; you need to ask yourself why you won’t listen to the Jewish community explaining the harm it is doing.

Everyone marching alongside people chanting anti Zionist chants and holding up slogans supporting the destruction of Israel and hatred of Jews (which are so prevalent on all these marches even if you yourself aren’t saying this you are walking alongside and in support of that cause) are doing it under the thin ‘veil’ of concern for ‘babies dying’. If you only cared about the babies dying you wouldn’t be allowing all the calls for the dismantling of Israel of allowing chants of ‘genocide’ or ‘end the occupation’

when the next terrorist attack that gets through without being intercepted ends in the death of innocent Jewish people I hope you can’t sleep at night knowing you were part of the zeitgeist for perpetuating hate and enabling this anti Jewish ideology.

you might not like what I am saying but I beg you to ask yourself why so many people can see it when you refuse to. I assume you don’t like it because you’re not a bad person, so please please reflect.

What do you think were the factors and events that led up to this? And how do you believe that these factors and events can be managed?

I don’t know why we haven’t been helping them more. Still being bombed by the turks still left struggling with the camps of isis followers. It’s a shitty straw they’ve drawn and everyone should be a little bit more grateful towards them.

I feel a bit aghast that a thread about a planned attack on british people has been derailed (sorry for my part in it). They were targeting a community on the basis of ethnic and religious identity. It should be pretty easy to condemn that full stop.

And the poor Kurds.

Isis tried to commit genocide against the yazidi.

I think what made me change my mind was realising that no one would call for any other people taking attack after attack after attack and then the brutal atrocities of October 7th to just put up with it and accept it. In no other country or conflict are people willing to support islamic extremist terrorist groups over another people as far as I'm aware of.

Also the wilful inability to see and acknowledge that it is in the absolute foundational ideology and manifesto of Hamas that all Jews should be slaughtered or driven out of Israel ie. there is no ability to come to a peaceful diplomatic solution whilst Hamas is in charge of Gaza because they do not want that.

I also find myself asking people well what if it was on our shores what would you actually feel or want to do regardless of what the history of the situation was if you had a people who wanted you dead and driven out of your home (regardless of whether people think it should be your home or not based on events 70+ years ago)?

Plus the fact that these people do not march over genuine intentional genocides that happen all over the world yet in when it involves Israel they can find such passion and rage. Eventually I have to boil it down to that the only difference is that it is Jews and the sad, unavoidable conclusion that yes, that is driven by anti-semitism even if they genuinely cannot see that.

I would not have seen or said this in my 20's or 30's.

Some sort of Hug a Houthi initiative.

I’m sorry this must be scary news for the Jewish community. I’m really surprised that we hear very little from the government on plans to unite us all and stop the rise of hate, which is being directed towards people since this conflict began. All I hear about is criminalising and telling people off, with this tending to be directed at the wrong people in my
opinion, and I hear little about bringing us all together.
I would like to say I hope this news doesn’t rob the Jewish community of its peace, and that people refuse to be intimidated, but it’s easy to say that, and less easy to do. And yes I realise people shouldn’t have to do that, so please don’t misinterpret or twist what I’ve written, which I did with good intentions.

More money is being invested into Prevent and money is being taken away from inter faith work.

What changed your mind?