with the terrible history Jews have, why is Israel behaving like this?

(You may notice the false debating trick, especially popular in the US but very easily recognised as false:

"Anyone who criticises any acts of the State of Israel is therefore anti-Semitic and is attacking Jews")

"Is it hate speech to mention collective punishment applied to people based on their ethnic origin?"

has spongeybob been blowing up people's houses or their water supplies, or blocking the road so they can't buy persil? Or dynamiting their wells or bulldozing their olive groves? Or bombing their sewage works? Has she forcibly deported them from their villages due to their Jewishness? Has she instituted blockades to prevent their hospitals and clinics obtaining supplies?

If so, that is terrible, and I condemn her just as I condemn Israel.

If not, not.

Why are you so aggressive, topbanana?

I am not attacking British Jews, several times I have said I find their posting of Pro Israeli propaganda on FB distasteful especially as their children are posting pictures of dead arab children.

This only serves to entice hate here.

Interesting and most timely that PigletJohn on this very page asked:

"Is it hate speech to mention collective punishment applied to people based on their ethnic origin?"

To which the implied answer was clearly no - it certainly is NOT hate speech to question people who think collective punishment of people based on their ethnic origin is acceptable. In other words, collective punishment of people based on their ethnic origin is NOT acceptable.

This makes spongeypop's posts attacking British Jews most curious.

As clearly British Jews in England are no more responsible for what their co-religionists are doing in Israel, than all Muslims are responsible for 9/11 or 7/7, or for the brutal murders of Muslim children in Syria, or than all British people are responsible for deaths in Iraq.

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Why do you find it so hard to grasp, spongepop?

And PigletJohn - I look forward to reading your next post - where you follow your principles and "question" spongeypop, about why s/he thinks it is acceptable to collectively blame all Jews for the actions of a few.

I found this today, which gives a good, basic explanation of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

If Israelis are so pro peace why did they vote Netanyahu in? And why do they insist on National Service for kids?
And I'm with PigletJohn. One mention of the abhorrent behaviour and the words anti and Semitic start being bandied around...if you want people like me to stop bitching and pointing the finger then stop the state sponsored killing, Israel. Stop voting for Israeli gun runners.
There are generations of kids that don't know life beyond refugee camps. The way that Israel treats Palestinians is disgusting and the UN should publicly condemn the war crimes that Israelis have committed.

topbanana's Jewish and Israeli friends have left her strangely ignorant of such things as the Israeli blockade and the drinking water and sewage problem, not to mention that she seems never to have met Israelis who enthusiastically bomb and shell them by the thousand, although there are enough of them to make that Israel's policy.

It's possible that on her visits she has never driven past the remains of an old Arab village that was ethnically cleansed.

Israel has top notch intelligence services. They eliminate targets very precisely. So i really don't believe that they are not targeting civilians intentionally.
Thanks to the social media, there is more information available than the media gives us.

There is a big difference posting pictures relevant to a conversation on mumsnet compared with posting pictures, news articles and videos on FB, children dont read mumsnet, do they?

And yes, I'd love to hear more about your awful Jewish friends too. Who clearly cast a valuable light on the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Given that they're neither one nor the other.

The pointlessness of it certainly doesn't seem to have deterred you.

Still sniggering, sorry.

Ha ha ha spongeypop.

I'm guessing posting propaganda on facebook helps about as much as posting it on Mumsnet.

Err I didnt say my friends were terrible, I said I dont agree with things they post on FB.
I am Lebanese (christian) I have lived through wars, they dont solve anything talks do. How does posting propaganda on FB help anyone?

My Muslim friends don't post facebook messages about the three kidnapped Israeli boys, and they don't post messages condemning the fact that over 200 children were killed in Syria this month alone, they don't even post messages about women stoned to death for adultery, or the position of women all over the Middle East, but I don't make generalizations about my Muslim friends based on this like Spongeypop seems desperate to.

Go ahead Spongeypop, tells us more about your terrible Jewish friends.

Anti-semitism and Anti-zionism get confused regularly, I agree.

Piglet I think speaking out against the actions of the Israeli state is, unfortunately, viewed as such. I think anti-zionism and anti-semitism also get confused regularly.

I condemn the actions of the Israeli state, and every Israeli person who has supported their government's actions, or cheered as missiles were launched at Gaza. Equally, I condemn anyone who supports the government's actions, Israeli or not. David Cameron, for example, is a grade A idiot for saying the UK supports them in this illegal war.
I also don't agree with Hamas firing rockets at Israel, but in this case, Netanyahu's war crimes are the biggest issue.

In your opinion, is it hate speech to mention the Occupied Territories and illegal settlements (colonies)?

Is it hate speech to mention the Israeli blockade?

Is it hate speech to mention water abstraction? Or bombing of sewage works?

Is it hate speech to mention Education spend?

Is it hate speech to mention destruction of solar panels in Arab villages inside Israel which have no mains electricity?

Is it hate speech to mention collective punishment applied to people based on their ethnic origin?

Is it hate speech to mention firing shells at children playing on a beach? Is it hate speech to say that cancelling a party is so far removed from this that it is offensive to raise it?

As I've said previously, I'm British and far, far more civilians were killed by the British in Iraq and Afghanistan than the Israelis have ever killed, in the 66 (?) years since the foundation of the State of Israel. But I am not 'guilty' because of this. I don't agree with the nutters who perpetrated 7/7 or murdered Lee Rigby that because I'm British I'm therefore a valid target. I'm not - any more than your average Israeli is.

Do you think that 7/7 and the murder of Lee Rigby were justified because of British involvement in wars that killed Muslims? Do you think you personally are a valid target because of this? And if not, why not? The British killed far more Muslims, and with far less justification - there is no way anyone could argue that the very existence of Britain was under threat and that we were fighting in self-defence.

Where do you draw the line?

(NB I already know the answer to that question - you conveniently and hypocritically draw it nice and far away from yourself.)

spongeypop - there is a huge difference between posting positive stuff supporting one side or mourning losses on one side, and posting hate speech about the other side.

What I've seen on facebook from British Jewish friends (and Israeli ones too) has been lots of positive stuff about keeping safe, about supporting those in the firing line, sadness about the Israeli teens who were murdered etc.

I have also seen frustration about the things that are not reported in the Western media. (Happy to post links if you like - they are not offensive.)

What I have not seen is any hate speech about Palestinians being second-class or cheers at civilians being killed. None at all.

Whereas this thread is absolutely shockingly, horrifying full of hate speech about Israelis. That's why I am bothering to post here. I cannot stand by and see Israelis - all Israelis, not just the Israeli government or even the Israeli army, but all Israelis, including Israeli children - referred to as to blame personally for the actions of their governments, now or in the past, and therefore fair game for Hamas rocket fire.

(And not only hate speech about Israelis - don't forget this thread was about Jews, not about Israelis, as though Israelis only behave the way they do because of their Jewishness, rather than because they are surrounded by enemies who threaten to wipe them out and are trying to kill them daily.)

We have to believe peace is possible. Peace has broken out in other parts of the world many times, it can be done.

Morloth not Morpeth.

Morpeth your posts are so ignorant. Imagine if the world thought like you with regard to the nazi vs jews in ww2, or blacks vs whites during slavery, or blacks vs whites in South Africa. That piece of desert is home to millions of people and has been usurped.

The land grabs would have been easier to deal with without the degradation and oppression.

The fight for freedom is not pointless for the palestinians. Why should it be? Would it be pointless if your home was invaded, illegally occupied and you and your kids were forced to live in your toilet?

Topbanana, my Jewish friends are British they live here not Israel thats why I can understand the amount of Israeli propaganda being spewed all over FB. Not one of my friends has shown any sympathy for the Palestinian women and children that have been killed. They are all highly educated, thats why I find the lack of balance and empathy so shocking.

If you put Arab and Jewish children in a room they would all play together, we learn to discriminate as we get older, what are my British Jewish friends teaching their children, that its ok to hate? because thats what it looks like to me.

It is just so pointless - neither of them will ever win.

Those children are dying for no reason whatsoever.

Springheeled, where has a refusal to recognise the rights of Palestinians got Israel?

Whose interests are served by refusal to recognise the right of Palestine to exist?

Morloth you're right - this is just going to run and run and the hatred, lost and ruined lives passed on to the next generation like a baton in some twisted and never ending relay race.

It might be a grotty piece of desert but people will and do fight over everything, both real and perceived. We had neighbours threaten to kill each other over a rockery stone (I kid you not!), which just shows what terratorial animals we are under all our veneer of sophistication. Once a conflict has spiraled out of control, it doesn't matter what the wisest thing to do might be, everyone has demonised and dehumanised the other side, and it's a war of attrition that no one can win.

What did anyone learn about trying to defeat Afghanistan? Bugger all by the look of it. Everyone takes a pop at it and like a woman determined to change her bad boy of a man, thinks they'll be the one to win through.

There's not the will for peace between Israel and Palestine. It's not going to happen. A tragic nightmare.

I'm Jewish but not Israeli or a Zionist. What the Jews have done to the Palestinians cannot be condoned. That the terrorist leaders of Palestine are prepared to use civilians as human shields cannot be condoned.