Hamas ‘death culture’ beyond comprehension, says founder’s son

Agreed. and I'll have to come back and read today's posts when my brain decides to fire up again. Just for now, because it's really niggling me:

No western country has rockets and missiles fired into it on an almost constant basis.

Ukraine.

Come back and tell me what a western democracy acts like when western democracies face the same situations as Israel does.

I'll tell you what Ukraine hasn't done - Run undercover raids on Russian border lands, displacing Russian residents and destroying their farms. Fired barrages into Russian town centres, schools and hospitals. Demonised and punished Russian citizens for being Russian. Murdered ambulance crews. Ignored international opinion while seeking international support. Claimed divine right to conquer Russian territories.

Israel's acting more like Russia, insofar as comparisons can be drawn.

There are massive differences, of course; the biggest one being that Israel's a small country, genuinely surrounded by enemies. This is why it has its 'iron dome' and I fully support that, as I think most people do. Expansionism isn't defence, however. Neither is the brutal, sustained and indiscriminate assault on Palestinian people.

Antisemitism is real - as is islamophobia. This doesn't mean that all criticism of Israeli actions, or Islamist ones, comes from prejudice. If you hear every word of censure as bigotry you automatically undermine your position. It's certainly true that many people will take any excuse to let their prejudices show, and that many people's instinctive response to fear is hatred. I was living in London while IRA terrorism was at its height, and saw this in action against apolitical Irish people being held to account for the attacks. (I also found out that a couple of my friends were activists - there were more similarities here than PPs upthread wanted to accept, but that's beside the point.)

All this writing just to say:

1. It's rather blinkered to say no "western democracy" is under attack;
2. You can't credibly claim that all critique of Israel's aggression is antisemitic.

@PaxAeterna
Yes, I was also criticising Israel’s government directly post Oct 7th, but then I had been criticising them since Jan 2023 due to the government’s attacks on an independent judiciary and the corruption trials pending against Netanyahu. If a government controls the judiciary, you no longer have a functioning democracy with equality before the law. And if the government is corrupt and can be bought- then it’s more like Russia or Iran than a western country.

The government response to the Hamas mass murder spree on Oct 7th was scary. The rhetoric on 7/8/9th October of “mighty vengeance” (Netanyahu) and “no electricity, no water, no food, everything is closed- these are human animals..” (Gallant) and various media presenters was shocking- one even said we will build car parks on your bones. By Oct 9th, more Gazan children had been killed by IDF air strikes than Israeli children had been killed by Hamas. Within a week, I was concerned that the war being fought to defend Israel against Hamas, but also being abused as an opportunity for revenge on Palestinian civilians.

To me, it was the Hamas terror attack that emboldened antisemites to immediately attack Jewish communities in Europe. These are terrorist fans. They hadn’t a clue about Israel, they just hate Jews and this was an opportunity to roam the streets and spread the Hamas inspired terror. I blame Hamas for why antisemitism increased.

But while the Oct 7th attack aftermath is why criticism of Israel also became more visible, I do think the people doing antisemitic attacks or criticism of Israel are not all one and the same. Sure, there is overlap as antisemites will happily don a mask of faux concern whenever it suits them. Much like racist convicted domestic abusers/rapists are masking their racism towards asylum seekers with faux concern for safety of English girls and women.

Many critics, like me, had already been disgruntled over Netanyahu’s government for years or had been aware of the Palestinian conflict from earlier flare ups.

You just said I gave the impression of delegitimising Israel because I said the difference with Israel was that it was established later. I'm just clarifying myself against your comment that I was obviously against the existence of Israel.

Does it really matter though. Targeting and hating someone purely because of their beliefs or identity is wrong. It devalues people as human beings. It doesn’t matter if they chose it or not. Every group might experience racism differently but you can’t start to rank racism into which is the most worst based on some bias you hold yourself.

Yrs I'm aware of the date of the founding of the state of Israel. What's your point?

I was comparing Israel to USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, European states and Israel was established in 1948 so much later than the others.

Fucking hell. I didn't know that- that you can be born Muslim. In fact, I've never really thought through how one becomes Muslim, mainly because ( thankfully ) no Muslim has ever tried to convert me.

Muddies the waters a bit.

Thankyou.

Thank you, I'll read that properly over the weekend!

Here is a report that fully shows the data supporting your comments on the spikes in antisemitism following Oct 7th.
https://www.jpr.org.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/Antisemitism%20post%20October7%20JPR%20Sep%2024.pdf

I think your point is slightly different as the poster was speaking about Muslims not as an ethnicity (as it is a multi-ethnicity religion), but as a religion that one can always choose. One can never choose your ethnicity no matter what religion you are born into.

Being born Muslim is not a choice just like being born Jewish is also not a choice.

In these majority Muslim countries, the crime of apostasy usually only applies to those who were born and raised Muslim. It doesn’t apply to those born Christian, Jewish, Hindu, etc.

The concept of apostasy is to prevent the children of Muslims from ever choosing to stop being a Muslim.

As far as I know, we have never had a law with the death penalty for any Jewish person who decides to stop believing in Judaism and convert to another religion. They also weren’t subjected to “honour killings” for daring to not practice Judaism but worship a different god. We have had civil wars- religious schisms where different Jewish sects fought each other for primacy but that’s a different kettle of fish.

I vehemently criticised Israel’s response in the wake of 7/10. As horrific as the Hamas massacre was nothing justified the level of the attack on the entire population. The rhetoric from politicians, the types of weapons being used, cutting aid, electricity….. And then we had all the allies literally clapping this on. It was horrifying. The writing was on the wall from the very beginning. It looks little like destroying Hamas and a lot like collective punishment.

I don’t think that viewpoint was dominant then though. I’ve looked back on the first threads and there were a lot more moderate pro Israeli’s. People who were blinded by the horror of Hamas and had (misguided) faith that Israel were doing the right thing in the right way.

They are gone now of course. We are nearly at the point where everyone was always against this.

Of course, there are still people who think that if only everyone realised how awful Hamas are that we would understand why all the Palestinians need to suffer!

Correct. The last holy war was over a thousand years ago, but you were a bit forgetful of our history to assert that “the Jewish people have never engaged in a holy war”

We have. And some of our political leaders seem to have been, and still thinking of and speaking about the Gaza war in such religious terms.

It reminds me of other holy wars but most especially the Spanish Reconquista.

Yes. I am honestly still reeling from it and it has very much coloured my view of the debates on here and the events taking place on our streets.

But they weren't that's the point. There was a massive spike in antisemitism on 7/8 October. This was people revelling in what happened. It was nothing whatsoever to do with the military reaction that followed because the reaction hadn't started. What should have happened is beside the point. What did happen is what matters.

That's a slightly diffefent point though. Being Jewish is an ethnicity. Being a Muslim is not. The fact that so msny muslims and muslim nations deeply intolerant of apostasy is a separate issue.

@dairydebris
100% agree on Islamophobia. After all, Christians have killed more Jewish people than Muslims have so I don’t understand the phobia.

However, one minor detail I need to correct
”Islamophobia and Antisemitism can't be compared fairly though. Following Islam is a choice a person may make. Being born Jewish is not. I think that's a really important point.”

Most Muslims are born Muslim. In many muslim communities you cannot choose to convert to another religion or atheism without being guilty of Apostasy. In 10 muslim majority countries as of 2021, the penalty for anyone born Muslim to recant their faith is death. This doesn’t count the extrajudicial “honour murders” that still happen in communities where apostasy has been decriminalised.

I’m not questioning what happened on here, don’t worry. I’ve seen plenty of horrendous stuff written about Jewish people over the last couple of years and you’re right, hatred is never acceptable.

I think there are people who have followed the situation between the two counties before 7/10 and may see themselves as anti Israel because of their interactions with Palestinians but this shouldn’t overlap with antisemitism or any form of hatred. Call out the government’s decisions and behaviour but not the whole Jewish population. And, I will add, 8/10 (or even 7/10 in some terrible cases) isn’t the time to say ‘but Israel’. It was a horrendous attack and the only comments should’ve been ones of empathy or outrage.

I’m not sure what you mean in your second paragraph. Is the comment highlighting just how horrendous the 7/10 atrocities were?

What I mean is that the anti-Israel sentiment that was so aggressively expressed here in the immediate aftermath of 7/10 could not be excused on the basis of moral outrage at Israel's response to it. Where did it come from? Who were these people? There weren't just a few, they dominated the CITME forum. (Can anyone back me up here, or have I gone mad? that's how I remember it...).

Now, it's easy to say "Ah but we're not being antisemitic at all, because look at the genocide/starvation/etc in Gaza..." but this outpouring of vitriol predated all of that, and added insult to deep and recent injury.

Antisemitism has skyrocketed globally. Over the same period, antisemitic hate crimes in the USA rose by 200%.

Apologies - to clarify, I don’t think reducing it to antisemitism or hatred of Jewish people is accurate.

That is shocking and sadly there are people who happily hide behind their screen saying horrendous things about Jewish people. They may also say them to friends and family or worse shout them at any one they believe to be Jewish. It’s terribly sad and frightening. As I’ve said before, the flames of antisemitism are bound to be massively fanned by the conflict and those comments or, worst still any actions aimed at Jewish people are unacceptable.

I’m not sure what you mean in your second paragraph. Is the comment highlighting just how horrendous the 7/10 atrocities were?

I can understand your concerns re radicalisation in the UK but what I see contradicts that narrative (I’m not saying either is right or wrong, just inviting discussion). We look scarily on track to have our own right wing government in the next election that fans the flames of intolerance and hatred, especially toward minorities. Labour under Corbyn lost voters impart because of the antisemitism issues in the labour party. Brits are setting fire to asylum hotels and racist attacks against minorities are soaring. To me, it sounds like we are getting a lot less tolerant as a country and are more likely to be racist towards Muslims than signing up to Islam or being terrorist sympathisers.

Because SA are fighting a proxy war on behalf of the USA.
All wars the USA backs= good
All wars the USA doesn’t back = bad & veto, veto, veto any sanctions the UN wants to issue.

I don't think I've ever said it was about religion. Antisemitism is directed at Jews regardless of their levels of observance, though Hasidim can be more vulnerable because of their very visible dress/hair.

Yes but Netayahu is very recent. I was talking about history.

Yes - I agree that the standards are unfair and, as I’ve said before, I think there is definitely anti-semitism at play. I just don’t believe that is the only issue in this conflict. Personally, I think it also reflects badly that people are more understanding or apathetic of a Muslim country v Muslim country conflict or resigned to famine in Africa, even if more people are suffering but focusing on that takes us away from the theme of this thread!