Pro-Israel - I don't understand

It is terrible. But then proper independent press isn’t allowed into Gaza so who knows what the Palestinians that live there might think.

I do know that it did cost a lot of money to be smuggled out of Gaza. There were apparently Egyptians traffickers who could arrange to get you out for somewhere in the region of US$10k per person before 7/10/23. It’s impossible now I believe. That sort of money is way beyond what most can afford so most were trapped.

OK, fair enough, sorry!

It's a pity that the only Palestinians who can speak against Hamas are living outside Gaza. If that were different, it would change things immensely.

I have read a lot of good quality information and understand the background to the conflict much better than I used to. It is a huge mess and I honestly don’t know if it will truly be resolved in my life time . Given the complexities, I struggle with people who are tribal about the conflict.

Zionism used to be unpopular amongst Eastern European Jews. A majority of Jews wanted to get on with their lives in peace, making a life in the places where they reside rather than yearning for a land to call their own.

Wikipedia gives a fair summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundism

The holocaust ruined this movement - it comprehensively dismantled the sense of safety that Jews living in Europe experienced. And drove the desire for a homeland for their own, free of antisemitism and threats to life.

The less safe people feel, the greater the calls on both sides for a safe place to reside in peace.

No, I wasn’t using it as a loose term and I don’t believe that it is a loose term anyway.

Of the Palestinians I met in Jordan, 1 lives in the West Bank and commutes daily into Jordan to work, 3 others were born and bred in Gaza but had fled the country almost 20 years ago. All had family still living in Gaza. 1 of them, his 2 sisters were killed in the maternity hospital bombing.

Nothing like asking a Welsh person about French policies.

With respect, "Palestinian" is a very loose term. They could be in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Chile, the United States, or Europe. Asking someone in Jordan what they think of what's happening in Gaza is like asking a Welsh person to comment on French politics. I don't think you can assume that what a Jordanian thinks about Hamas bears any relation to what a Gazan feels.

How Hamas and many Gazans feels about Israel and the people who live there was kind of trumpeted from the rooftops on 7/10/23 and its reception in Gaza, and yet people here in the UK still seem to persist in the delusion that they just want to live peacefully alongside Israelis. I wish with all my heart that that could be true, but it just... isn't.

How do you think that compares with Afghanistan’s rate of 1% over 5 times as long?

And the same can be said for Al-Qaeda blending in with locals, huge underground tunnel networks etc.

There has been no independent evidence that Hamas were underneath the bombed hospitals.

Possibly that lovely one about the river and the sea.
I’ve mentioned it elsewhere - someone I know on FB, a typical “be kind”, love and rainbows person, with a mild attitude and friendly smile, put a “From the river to the sea” banner on their profile picture not long after October 7th.
I did wonder if they actually knew what that meant.

Spoiler - the crux of it is that Arabs (who colonised the area themselves prior to it being Ottoman territory for 400 years and called Southern Syria, NOT an Arab State), believe they have a right to ALL the land and they refuse to accept acceeding even a tiny part of it for a Jewish State despite the Jews being indigenous to the land and it being the Jewish ancestral homeland having had a Jewish presence for 3000 years

I don’t understand this argument at all. None of it matters. It doesn’t matter whether the Jews were indigenous to the land a long long time ago. It doesn’t matter that Arabs colonised the area before or that it went to the Ottomans. The Anglo Saxons came over to England about the same time. So what?
It doesn’t matter that there are lots of Arab states (they’re not a monolith). It doesn’t matter that there was no official state called Palestine. Statehood is after all just a means to an end.

What matters is that there were people living there, and that those local communities were displaced. Whether they felt Palestinian, Jordanian or whatever, they didn’t deserve to be forcibly expelled.

And nor do the Israelis who were born there now. They don’t deserve to be forced out.

There is no solution. Personally I’d like to see a one state solution. Equal rights for all. Take away the law imposing any religion and allow international right to return for 1948 refugees. Whoever is there now stays. But that’s hopelessly naive.

I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe God promised the land to anyone. If he did then why doesn’t he appear now and tell us all? It’s just about people having a safe place to live and enjoying equal rights.

But in just the same way we need to separate Jewish people, or more accurately, Israeli people, from the policies of Netanyahu and the IDF. We need to separate Palestinians from Hamas.

When in Jordan recently, I met and spoke to many Palestinians. All bar 1 was extremely disparaging about Hamas and the damage that organisation has done to Palestinians for decades before the horrors of what they did to the Israelis on 7/10.

Likewise, my neighbour is the leader of the local Chabad and doesn’t support the war on Gaza.

"Yes, put yourselves in danger, do whatever it takes to preserve and protect the people that want you dead and gone."

On a different thread someone suggested the other day that the IDF should have arrested Hamas fighters and sent out some special task teams to retrieve the hostages.
Not sure how exactly they imagined all that would be implemented.

This. People are deluding themselves if they think they aren't participating in the delegitmising of Israel.

I wonder what chants you heard at the march you went to?

I went to an early Palestine march in London and didn’t see anything like that. It was very peaceful in fact.

Unfortunately marches tend to bring out the nutters who just want any reason to fight with anyone which is why I no longer go to these things.

OK, I understand... I think maybe this comes from repeated emphasis (here on MN) on the idea that Israel should bend over backwards to accommodate the demands of a population that has made no secret of wanting Israel eliminated, and made that mind-blowingly clear on 7/10/23. It comes across as "Yes, put yourselves in danger, do whatever it takes to preserve and protect the people that want you dead and gone." It doesn't seem particularly balanced or fair.

The marches and social media of the protests in my city are absolutely based on the premise that Israel should and will cease to exist.

I meant on this thread (and other threads).

I’ve seen some interviews with military experts discussing this.
There seem to be various reasons - urban warfare in a densely populated area, Hamas not wearing uniforms and blending in with the civilians, Hamas hiding in the extensive tunnel networks (while denying shelter to civilians) and using civilian infrastructure, Hamas boobytrapping buildings (apparently, this accounts for high levels of destruction in Rafah, for instance).

I haven’t seen or heard anyone suggest that Israel should just disappear.

Then you don't understand Hamas.

I've been to Egypt, Turkey, Oman and UAE (although only as a visitor). I've lived in 2 muslim countries in SE Asia.

I felt safe in the very controlled circumstances I was in, when visiting, but also felt many eyes on me wherever I went - and often not in a way that I was comfortable with. I had a couple of experiences where men leapt to anger very quickly when I mis-understood something (in a shop and in an airport)

In SE asia I generally felt very safe, but I wouldn't have flaunted my religion, and I was careful in my clothing choices day to day. I wasn't free as I would be in Israel.

Edit to add - and that's the men that spoke to me. There were others that I just didn't exist to.

I'm under no illusion that my experience would be anything like that of a Palestinian woman though.

It is being done without the total destruction of the Gazan people.
As for the infrastructure; less buildings above ground, less places above ground for Hamas to turn into their version of " trap houses" , using the occupants or workers in those buildings as shields.
The notion that ruining the infrastructure of the enemy in a war being some action unique to Israel from Pro Palestinians has me wondering if they actually lie to themselves and believe the lies, or if a very large faction of them are educationally " touched".

In which case I apologise for any forthrightness as I like to debate with those of a full shilling disposition , because anything else would be like kicking a three legged poodle.

And to get ahead of the other disingenuous proposition.
One side not being as equipped as the other does not invalidate a war being a war. Neither does the losing side being less equipped invalidate a war being a war. In fact, only a few sides that lose a war manage to do so by ending up better equipped than the victors, even if they started off that way.
It is not Israel's fault that Hamas spent not a red cent on bunker for infrastructure for the citizens under its rule in preparation for a war that took two years of planning.
That's where hating one's enemy more than loving one's own people will getcha.

Israel cannot be made to love Palestinians more than Hamas and too many fellow Palestinians do, or even as much.
And most certainly not to the point of putting their people in the same position as Hamas has Gazans in order to fulfill some type of grotesque " parity" to the satisfaction of anti Zionists.
Hamas had twenty years to do far more with and for Gaza than it did and with the world of money pumped into Gaza from all over creation.

But when God and holy book comes before people, the tolerance for sub standardism IS the standard where piety reigns.

About 3% of Gazan's pre-war population has been killed since 7/10/23. That's a lot of people, but to me it does not suggest that "no effort is being made to protect civilians whatsoever" ... quite the contrary, in the circumstances (Hamas being invisible, indistinguishable from "innocent civilians", hiding in a vast infrastucture of underground tunnels, siting their key operations under hospitals and schools, etc)...? I mean, over 2 years, if Israel had not paid any attention to strategic conflict, surely the death count would have been much higher?

I wouldn't want to be a woman in the area in any country other than Israel. I wouldn't want to be gay, or any Christian either.

Have you actually been to any countries “in the area”? As female Christian, I have visited many and worked in a couple and have always felt safe and respected.

ETA: I also don’t why pro-Israel supporters jump to the assumption that anyone who opposes the destruction of Gaza wants the eradication of Israel as a country. I haven’t seen or heard anyone suggest that Israel should just disappear.

I have absolutely no idea, I’m not a military strategist nor secret agent!

But to put my thoughts into context…. this current situation (the atrocities of 7/10 and the IDF response) is not too dissimilar to 9/11 and the Afghanistan war. Al-Qaeda attacked the US on home soil, a dramatic response was required given the horrific nature of the attack. In that case though the US, supported by the UK, did everything they could to limit civilian casualties. During the conflict in Afghanistan over an 11 year period 46k civilians lost their lives. Osama Bin Laden was located and executed by special ops.

This current conflict in Gaza has already claimed over 64k civilian lives and injured over 160k more in just 2 years.

No effort is being made to protect civilians whatsoever. Which is why I don’t believe this is just about removing Hamas.

And time will tell. Unfortunately I believe that this will only stop once Israel has Gaza. If Netanyahu then moves onto occupying more of the West Bank then we will all see that this was never just about Hamas.

It does feel a bit that way. How are you getting on OP with your appraisal of the situation?

I've seen posters say that Israel should have somehow used their intelligence networks to pinpoint key players and bring them to justice, or carefully eliminate them in some mysterious way that poses no danger to anyone attempting to do so in a society where the killing of a Jew/Israeli (preferably in as sadistic a way as possible) = instant social status and financial reward.

The pager explosions could not have been more cleverly targeted, but even that meets with a frown on MN because bystanders could have been hurt.

I can't help feeling that some people apply the principles of social workers/education welfare officers to a brutal Middle Eastern culture they do not understand. There seems to be little acknowledgement that terrorists are not the easiest of people to locate or deal with, especially when the whole network is spread like mycelium.