Support for Palestine at Glastonbury

Well said! I would also like to see it work both ways. If we couldn't mention the atrocities being committed against the Palestinians without condemning Hamas/ October 7th, then Israel supporters shouldn't be able mention October 7th without also condemning the IDF, acknowledging the 40,000 (at least) dead Palestinians in Gaza AND the 76 years of brutal occupation the Palestinians have suffered. Fair is fair.

Don't you dare tell me to calm down. You are proposing theft of more Palestinian land and I, as a Palestinian, am supposed to accept it. Shouldn't it be that ALL the illegal settlers go back to Israel?

I am a Palestinian with family in Haifa and Nazareth. We call ourselves Palestinian not Arab. Yes, the vast majority of them aren't 'violent' ( just like the vast majority living under occupation btw) because they remained on their land, have jobs and can function relatively normally. But don't delude people that they live as equally as the Jewish Israeli population.
What is it you want the occupied Palestinians to do? Give up? This violence you speak about is reaction and resistance to occupation.
The fact that we have been resisting since 1948 shows how wrong this whole situation is.
Back to the topic though; this reminds me that in October to December, nobody was able to comment on the Palestinian deaths without having to 'condemn Hamas'. Now people aren't allowed to show support, sympathy whatever without also mentioning the Nova festival
deaths? Good. Let's mention them because that massacre was atrocious ( please also don't forget that the IDF contributed to the numbers killed). It works both ways.
How refreshing it's going to be from now on to see Mumsnetters referring to the unnecessary, gruesome murder of 40,000 Palestinians every time they discuss the horrific Nova massacre.

What the fuck have I just read?? The best solution would be to annex the land with settlements on the West Bank.? You mean the ILLEGAL settlements.

Yes, given the impracticality of uprooting 500,000 Jewish settlers from the West Bank, incorporating some of the larger settlements into Israel, rather than into a future Palestinian state which won't want them anyway, seems like the best solution. Land swaps which compensate the Palestinians for settlements were proposed in the peace talks of 2000 and 2008, and would inevitably feature in any future peace deal, so you might have to calm down a bit about what the fuck you just read.

Some settlements might have to be evacuated, as the Gazan ones were, but IMO it would be preferable for at least some to be incorporated into any future Palestinian state, so that it has a significant Jewish minority. Israel has a large Arab minority and this has only been positive in discouraging inter-ethnic violence by helping Jews and Arabs to see each other as human beings with whom they have to get along. It puzzles me that many leftists - who love to accuse Israel of 'Apartheid' - take it for granted that a Palestinian state in the West Bank should by rights not include any Jews.

Jews lived in the West Bank for centuries before the Jordanian army ethnically cleansed them in the 1948 war. There were 500+ years-old Jewish communities in Hebron and Jerusalem (where they were the majority) which were completely destroyed, first by Arab pogroms, then by the Jordanian army, which also destroyed almost all of the synagogues in the Old City and uprooted and desecrated millennia-old Jewish cemeteries. (Something that people outraged about 'stolen land' never seem to know or care about.) In a comprehensive peace settlement, there is no reason Jews shouldn't live in the West Bank again, provided of course that they are willing to respect their Palestinian neighbours and live in a Palestinian state if that's where the borders end up being drawn.

My overall point is not that we shouldn't be outraged about the land-grabbing the Israeli government has been engaged in for the past 20-odd years, or about the racist and belligerent settlers, or some of the accompanying policies that are obviously designed to demoralise the Palestinians and encourage them to leave. It's that the simplistic narrative the left has been propagandising - that there was a country called 'Palestine' that was stolen from the Arabs by the Jews, and the Jews are to blame for everything that's happened since - is both untrue and counterproductive to achieving lasting peace.

This exactly

Love what Chris Martin said in his loving message ro Israel tonight

Yes. They also ignore how it is Israel that has been destroying Palestine and have been quite open about expelling the Palestinians. Daniella Weiss's interview about creating a humanitarian crises in Gaza so that the surrounding countries take them in, allowing Israel to take all of Gaza. Ben Gvir also made a speech about expelling all the Palestinians from Gaza. But despite all of this, it's the Palestinians who are the problem somehow, not the Israel. 🙄

When people have hope, a future for their kids they are less concerned with hate and they focus on living.

This is true and in highlighting the extremism that characterises Palestinian society, I did not mean to suggest that things cannot be different. We already know that they can because there are two million Arab citizens of Israel, the vast majority of whom are not violent and most favour coexistence with Jews. There is no need for the Palestinian cause to be as violent and irredentist as it is. It is a choice, encouraged by many in the West, to continue believing that they can keep re-prosecuting the 1948 war until they get a different outcome. When all it does is strengthen the irredentists on the Israeli side.

IKR? 😬 So ridiculous and evil. Some of the comments have been so vile here lately.

Some people refuse to accept that the issue is that Palestine is seeking self determination, not to destroy Israel.

There are some very disturbing views on this thread unfortunately.

What the fuck have I just read?? The best solution would be to annex the land with settlements on the West Bank.? You mean the ILLEGAL settlements. So the best solution is to steal more of Palestine. I've heard it all now.

The strategic reason would be defensive as in the height of the area and the continuous rocket and other attacks. As you say, it’s illegal, and Israelis shouldn’t be settling there. I’m simply saying that there are strategic reasons, not just religious or expansionist ones.

I can understand where you are coming from and I agree there would need to be a transition period but I also think that if Palestine was a nation state with self determination, control over its own clearly defined protected borders, control over imports/ exports, freedom to travel and everything else that comes with being a true independent nation state, the extremist element would become more and more irrelevant and people would be occupied with building their state, economy and society. When people have hope, a future for their kids they are less concerned with hate and they focus on living.

So what important, strategical reason is there that would allow Israel to (illegally) take over the West Bank?

@poshsnobtwit It’s true that the West Bank is strategically important though. I’m not justifying settler violence, it’s not justifiable imo, but there is more to it than religious fundamentalism.

It would be reckless to establish a Palestinian state now given the extreme levels of radicalisation that exist in Palestinian society and the close ties that Palestinian terror groups have with Iran. I agree that leaving millions of people in stateless limbo is unacceptable, but establishing an Iranian-proxy terror state on Israel's longest border would be a terrible outcome for the region. Aside from the risk to Israel, it would likely destabilise Jordan and lead to the takeover of that country by another Iranian proxy army, as has happened in Lebanon.

The best solution IMO would be Israel annexing the largest Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the rest of it becoming part of a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation, with Palestinian political representation (parties that espouse violence are proscribed) but Jordanian oversight of security. Jordan was the occupying power there between 1948-1967, and the majority of its population is Palestinian (Jordan used to be part of Mandatory Palestine). This new confederation would need to protect the rights of any Jews that chose to remain, just as Israel protects the rights of its Arab minority. There would also need to be a commitment to overhauling the education system, which currently teaches Jew hatred and martyrdom to Palestinian children. It's a moot point though, because the Jordanian government would rather set their hair on fire than get involved in this quagmire.

Failing that, I think steps to creating a path to a Palestinian state in the future, with careful oversight of all institutions by other countries (Saudis, UAE, US) is probably the only way forward. You cannot have a WB state develop the way Gaza did, with a terrorist group getting elected to govern, and then proceeding to spend all its energies on building a tunnel network under the entire civilian population so as to turn them into human shields for its terror activities.

I am horrified by what’s happening in Gaza. The scale of the horror is difficult to comprehend.
Remembering the victims from both sides in public contexts like a festival helps to prevent our society becoming polarised and demonising one group. I agree with condemnation of Israeli actions in Gaza. I just want people to show compassion for the victims on both sides.

I think Netanyahu's strategy with the settlements in the West Bank was to prevent the emergence of any viable Palestinian state there. And the reason he wanted to prevent such a state was because he considered it would pose an intolerable security threat to Israel. Of course there is a fanatical minority of religious Jews who want to claim the West Bank because it's the heart of biblical Judea, but I don't think that was Netanyahu's motivation (he isn't religious). His strategy was purely pragmatic: build a whole lot of Jewish settlements there and the Palestinians will not have a base from which to attack. The West Bank is on high ground overlooking most major Israeli cities, so I can understand the logic, even while i agree that it creates a very unfair situation for the Palestinians

@Shutupaboutthesun There was an interview with Daniella Weiss, who confirmed that she had talks with Netanyahu and the MO was to strategically dot the settlements to geographically prevent the possibility of a two state solution. Absolutely nothing to do with security, it was because in her words the land of Judea and Samaria belongs to the jews and that they want it all, and will take it by force if the Palestinians don't give it.

The sad thing is, support for violence against Israel and/or for Hamas is probably a lot higher now among the Palestinians. You don’t exactly endear yourself to people when you kill their family and friends, flatten their neighbourhoods, leave them surrounded by people missing an arm or a leg and starve them.

I can't understand people whose hearts are so closed off that they can't feel compassion for innocent people being bombed, shot and terrorised.

The very ones who are aghast that "no one mentions 7/10" in the context of Glastonbury, seemingly couldn't give a shit about the genocide in Gaza, and the lived experience of Palestinians in the WB.

There have been some lovely messages of support for Palestine and Palestinians at festivals. It has been nice to see the positive support, the recognition of the right of Palestinians to exist, and the calls for a peaceful way forward.

Coldplay bringing out Elyana says it all 💓 amazing support for falastine.
Thanks cold play 💓

The thing is that for many of us there was not a ceasefire. A ceasefire is one where nobody dies. And before 7-10 there were people killed in Palestine, in fact 2023 before 7-10 was the year where Israel killed more people in Palestine.

@AhNowTed some people choose not to see injustice when it's inconvenient to their preferred view of the world.