Pro-Israel - I don't understand

Just curious, do you really think that for decades it was only ever Israel attacking the Palestinians, never the other way round?

I'm like you OP. Find it unbelievable that there even is such a thing as being pro-Israel. And I've been aware of their dreadful treatment of the Palestinians for decades. My views haven't changed since Oct 7 2023. I also won't get into arguments on Mumsnet about it, but just wanted to say I completely understand your pov.

I suppose that depends whether you count Israel being bombarded by missiles from Gaza for years, and the cross-border terrorist attacks they've had to deal with.

Why do you think Israel built the Iron Dome?

The reason it took a while for people to recognise the dangers at Nova Festival is that no one batted an eyelid at rocket attacks. Perfectly normal for Israelis. Imagine that at Glastonbury.

Also imagine how things would look different if Hamas had also built an Iron Dome, instead of investing everything into tunnels from which to destroy Israel and carefully siting its strategic centres under hospitals and schools. Or better still, if they had invested all that wealth into improving life for Gazans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel

I'm like you OP. Find it unbelievable that there even is such a thing as being pro-Israel. And I've been aware of their dreadful treatment of the Palestinians for decades. My views haven't changed since Oct 7 2023. I also won't get into arguments on Mumsnet about it, but just wanted to say I completely understand your pov.

Sorry that post got cut off somehow.

The Ottoman Census of 1878 shows the Jewish population as being only 5% of the whole at that point. Please see screen shot.
This is from ‘Demographics of Historic Palestine Prior to 1948’.
www.cjpme.org/fs_007

Emigration of Jews to Palestine began to increase under the British Mandate in the 1920s and 1930s after WW1.

And what about before Oct 7 or even before Hamas came into power with everything the Israel government has done to innocent Palestinians? Did the war only start on Oct 7 or with Hamas?

Because they have been killed and displaced by the Israeli government well before Oct 7 and treated the same as in your examples as innocent people. It wasn't as if Oct 7 happened randomly out of nowhere.

I think there is a widely held misconception that Jews didn’t exist in the Middle East until 1948 and that after the war European Jews came in and stole a country. It’s not that simple. There have been Jews on that land(which was British) as well as Jordan, Lebanon, Syria etc etc forever.

That is true but you look at the proportion of Jews to Palestinians living there in 1898

I think there is a widely held misconception that Jews didn’t exist in the Middle East until 1948 and that after the war European Jews came in and stole a country. It’s not that simple. There have been Jews on that land(which was British) as well as Jordan, Lebanon, Syria etc etc forever.

That is true but you look at the proportion of Jews to Palestinians living there in 1898

I think there is a widely held misconception that Jews didn’t exist in the Middle East until 1948 and that after the war European Jews came in and stole a country. It’s not that simple. There have been Jews on that land(which was British) as well as Jordan, Lebanon, Syria etc etc forever. Additionally Jews had been travelling there since the 19th century as it’s always been their holy land. Jerusalem is the equivalent of Mecca for Muslims. After Israel was officially created it became impossible for them to stay in neighbouring Arab and Levantine countries. It was hard before but now they were expelled. Where would they go? Where could they go?
It’s also worth mentioning that Arab countries have not done anything to help Palestinians- they are used as collateral.
And yes, October 7th was an act of war. Israel is surrounded by countries who wish them anihalated. Rightly or wrongly if you come for Israel they are going to come back harder, because it’s a matter of survival.
I hate Netanyahu, it’s tragic they don’t have a more moderate leader. The occupying fundamentalists should have been evicted from those territories years ago. What is happening now is appalling. But equally, to negotiate with terrorists invites more terrorism.
And anyone who doesn’t have real knowledge of the area who has a black and white view of any of this doesn’t really understand it. Experts who live there don’t have the answers so some uk student union gobshite over here DEFINITELY doesn’t.
My prayers are for peace, a 2 state solution, democracy in Palestine (unlikely) and Hamas to slither off back to the Hell that spawned them.

you need to get out more! And read more books. But mainly you probably need to meet more people who don't think, act, and look like you

Haven't RTFT, but just had to hop in here and mention that people were not just "shot and raped." Gazan civilian mobs swarmed through the broken fences to gleefully take part (survivors describe them laughing all the time), and by all accounts took things to a level that Hamas might not originally have planned. The victims were bludgeoned to death, burned alive, mutilated, tortured, and trophies (like scalps and eyes) were taken from their bodies. Women were raped while alive, dying, and dead; one had her breasts sliced off and kicked around in the dust. The perpetrators used the victims' phones to livestream this to friends and family of the victims. The attacks were celebrated joyfully in the streets of Gaza, including a well-known video of Shani Louk's mangled semi-naked corpse being paraded in the streets on the back of a truck, with the crowds rejoicing and spitting on what was left of her.

Anyone who debates the proportionality of Israel's response might want to consider how the UK would retaliate for a similar attack on our own soil.

I think there is a widely held misconception that Jews didn’t exist in the Middle East until 1948 and that after the war European Jews came in and stole a country. It’s not that simple. There have been Jews on that land(which was British) as well as Jordan, Lebanon, Syria etc etc forever. Additionally Jews had been travelling there since the 19th century as it’s always been their holy land. Jerusalem is the equivalent of Mecca for Muslims. After Israel was officially created it became impossible for them to stay in neighbouring Arab and Levantine countries. It was hard before but now they were expelled. Where would they go? Where could they go?
It’s also worth mentioning that Arab countries have not done anything to help Palestinians- they are used as collateral.
And yes, October 7th was an act of war. Israel is surrounded by countries who wish them anihalated. Rightly or wrongly if you come for Israel they are going to come back harder, because it’s a matter of survival.
I hate Netanyahu, it’s tragic they don’t have a more moderate leader. The occupying fundamentalists should have been evicted from those territories years ago. What is happening now is appalling. But equally, to negotiate with terrorists invites more terrorism.
And anyone who doesn’t have real knowledge of the area who has a black and white view of any of this doesn’t really understand it. Experts who live there don’t have the answers so some uk student union gobshite over here DEFINITELY doesn’t.
My prayers are for peace, a 2 state solution, democracy in Palestine (unlikely) and Hamas to slither off back to the Hell that spawned them.

I guess you could describe my position as pro Israel.

what I think is a bit more nuanced.

I consider Israel and Palestine pretty much both states. The October 7th attacks if done to any other nation could easily have been considered an act of war.

ok, war wasn’t declared but people were shot and raped in their homes and at a music festival.

so Palestine (or rather the Gaza Strip because as far as I’m aware the West Bank is PLO and wasn’t involved) committed an act of war.

so Israel took that as a declaration of war and is waging war.

now there’s an argument to be made about proportionate use of force (eg Coventry bombings, Dresden bombings, the US dropped the atom bomb on Japan even though Japan’s original pearl harbour attack wasn’t anywhere near that scale) but if you choose to provoke a war then it’s not possible to control how the other side reacts.

I don’t think how Israel treated Palestinians before Oct 7th was ok, but equally I see many countries where ethnic or gender or religious groups are treated far far worse (women in Afghanistan, the Yazidi, etc) and actions come with consequences.

ISIS tried to conquer and hold territory and a coalition of the US plus various other states basically completely broke them as a “state”. Hamas (who as far as I can tell are basically the same as ISIS) currently hold the Gaza Strip and honestly if one of the results of this is that they are broken I’ll be happy about that.

I don't think many people are pro-Israel. There are hardly any at pro-Israel protests and I've not met a single person in real life who remotely likes Israel.

There is a lot of simplistic, prejudiced foolishness on the pro-Palestinian side (illustrated above - nobody ‘likes’ Israel, apart from the media who are all pro-Israel). Personally that has given me more sympathy for the Israelis than I used to have - I see a lot of the criticism of them being rooted in support for the omnicause, rather than coming from a place of genuine, nuanced understanding.

There is a lot of simplistic, prejudiced foolishness on the pro-Palestinian side (illustrated above - nobody ‘likes’ Israel, apart from the media who are all pro-Israel). Personally that has given me more sympathy for the Israelis than I used to have - I see a lot of the criticism of them being rooted in support for the omnicause, rather than coming from a place of genuine, nuanced understanding.

If the destruction of over 90% of infrastructure and the starvation of children/babies doesn’t move people, the terminology used to describe it probably won’t either.

Yes but that still doesn't make October 7th a dog biting back, like it's in some way understandable. Two wrongs don't make a right you know.

Because they have been killed and displaced by the Israeli government well before Oct 7 and treated the same as in your examples as innocent people. It wasn't as if Oct 7 happened randomly out of nowhere.

Nobody supports genocide. The issue is that peilople disagree as to whether the current war is genocide. Perhaps if all the effort debating that question went into building peace we might get somewhere.

Nothing, not sure how that answers my question to the OP though.