Why do you support Palestine?

Do you belive the gazan people are oppressed by hamas?
The crux of the matter is that. Those on the marches never call for an end to hamas.
Free gaza from hamas. That should be the cry. Not 'from the river to the sea' which we all know is a dog whistle for ethnic cleansing of the israeli state.

And we're back to conflating Authorities with people again. Your own link shows that Hamas has, at most, the support of 20% of the Palestinian people, but you continue to imply that they are one and the same thing.

@HardcoreLadyType This kind of misinformation is so dangerous. There is lots of evidence disproving what you’ve just said. Israel has continued to hold unjustifiable control over Gaza.

I’ve lost so much respect for people who have blindly got on the bandwagon and joined protests etc. shows a real lack of critical thinking

I abhor Trump, and despise those who voted for him, but that's the downside of democracy, and we have to accept it because the alternatives are even worse.

And yes, I have certainly been vocal with regards to my opinions on the Trump administration, not least because I am concerned that he does not respect democracy, as we saw when he lost the previous election. We are all free to express our opinions. However, I have not ever suggested that the American people should be denied the right to vote or that their should forfeit their right to self determination because I don't like their choices.

I feel exactly the same way about the Palestinians. I might not like the choices that they would make if they had the opportunity to make them, but I still defend their right to exercise those choices

So your point isn't really the great "gotcha" that you seem to think it is.

How about you? Do you believe that people in other countries should have the right to elect leaders that you don't approve of?

I’ve lost so much respect for people who have blindly got on the bandwagon and joined protests etc. shows a real lack of critical thinking

Actually, Hamas’s attack did come out of a vacuum. They have been fully in control of Gaza since 2007. They could have stuck to governing Gaza, but chose instead to invade a neighbouring country to rape, torture and murder their citizens, simply because they hate them, because they are Jews.
In 2005, all Jews were forced to leave Gaza, some literally at gunpoint. Jewish bodies were exhumed, so the land would be Judenrein for the Arabs.
This was done by Israel for the Arabs of Gaza, but this was not enough for the Gazans. They want Israel, as well.

@Wildflowers99 Should we bomb into non-existence all Muslim countries then or just the ones that are inconveniently placed? This is clearly genocide. It’s astonishing to me that you can’t see this.

I don’t understand why people think they have the right to decide which religions are acceptable and which aren’t (not being at all religious myself, I support freedom of religion).

OP you seem to be swerving the main question you're getting on here.

What is your solution? The displacement of the Palestinian people or the destruction of them?

If someone was to come on here and say that they didn't support Israel's right to self determination or the right for Isreal to be a country of its own this thread would have been pulled immediately (and rightly so!)

I lost sympathy with the Palestinian people who cheered at the body of a raped young woman being paraded through the streets, and partied around the handover of the bodies of murdered preschoolers.
I lost sympathy with the crowds filmed celebrating, looking well dressed, while the narrative is that thousands have been killed and the rest are starving. All I can assume is that it’s a two tier society where one half of the population is being sacrificed to protect the other.
I am not encouraged to sympathy by the marchers here- they are aggressive and hostile and bear no resemblance to any peace march I’ve ever seen.

I sympathise with the palestinian people who just want to live a normal life and i sympathise with the israeli victims of terrorism. I do not sympathise with hamas terrorists or people that bomb others.

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

I don’t condone violence on any side but if unless you’ve lived under oppression before you wouldn’t understand.

Sorry, I don't get your point.

I can't stand Trump and I am utterly appalled by the fact that the American people have elected him, but I don't think anyone has suggested that we should somehow march in and remove the right of US citizens to self determination because they can't be trusted to use it properly.

Are you actually suggesting that America should not be an independent country any more because they have made such dreadful political decisions? Thought not.

You might think you're being clever in drawing such analogies, but in many ways, you're kind of proving my point.

Anyway, given that you don't support a Palestinian state, please tell us what you propose as an alternative solution.

This is so derivative and just shows you really don't understand what your support shows

Same, including very very dear friends of mine

Whatever you think of Palestine, I think you should be careful what you wish for. Between this, and Russia/Ukraine, prepare to see land grabs escalate.

Palestinians have been horribly mistreated and suppressed by Israel for decades. I don’t agree it’s about religion. It’s about Palestine fighting for its right to exist. It’s very clear looking at Israel’s actions over the last few decades that this was always their end game, October 7 was just the justification they needed.

How one can't be sympathetic too the Palestinians is beyond me. Equally how one can't be horrified by the Oct 7th attacks.
As a people neither side are evil as regime's they both are. Hamas's attack didn't come out of a vacuum.

I have. I fail to see how it counters anything I've said. From your own link

"Hamas has only the support of a fifth of the population – a steep decline from a March 2024 PCPSR poll that showed majority support for Hamas in Gaza"

I support Palestine because I don’t agree with their land being stolen, and I don’t agree with the mass murder of children and innocents. In short, I don’t agree with genocide.

I don’t support Hamas.

Gut-wrenchingly sad that these two Israeli children have been murdered by terrorists.

“Conservative figures show that more than 6,000 women and 11,000 children were killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the last 12 months.” - Oxfam.org, pub. Sept 2024.

There needs to be a two-state solution. I suspect that now Palestine has been totally decimated in the last 12 months, people are feeling more comfortable to argue that Israel should simply absorb that whole area. It’s genocide.

Btw 11,000 children killed by the Israeli military is an unimaginable horror that I cannot begin to comprehend.