Why are so many GC women pro-Israel?

First-cousin marriage really is more prevalent in Britain's Pakistani-origin community. There's a long-term study Born in Bradford (where just under half of Pakistani-origin women are married to a first or second cousin) which, amongst other things, has turned up the unintended medical and educational consequences of this. The intended social consequence is to reinforce clan bonds, which in turn have political consequences for communities in Britain with a high Pakistani-origin population, especially those from Kashmir, where bloc-voting, organised by community elders (all male, of course) is the norm. I was born in a town which has a large Pakistani-origin population and the political influence of that sector is out of proportion to the percentage of voters involved because a large chunk of votes can be absolutely guaranteed for the favoured candidate once a deal is done.

This isn't scare-mongering; it's a fact of life about those communities. Further, about 75% of the UK population as a whole is against first-cousin marraige.

It's become very difficult not to believe that the modern Left despises, or at the very least doesn't care about, women and Jews.

Five months. It took them five months.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-finds-evidence-of-rape-on-oct-7-and-after-israel-they-tried-to-downplay-issue/

'It took about eight weeks for UN Women, a women’s rights group under the tutelage of the UN, to post, and shortly thereafter delete, a condemnation of the October 7 onslaught itself.
Another week would go by before the agency registered the existence of “disturbing reports of gender-based and sexual violence on October 7.”
The delayed response sparked outrage among Jewish and Israeli feminist groups, rallying to the hashtag “#MeTooUNlessURAJew” and charging the UN body’s silence was motivated by antisemitism.'

Remind me how long it was post October the 7th before the UN acknowledged the rapes of Israeli women?

There were absolutely people celebrating the attacks. Openly.

Buddhistm isnt based on an omnipotent deity. Some sects have 'gods' but the Buddha was just a bloke.

What about religions that don't solely have male deities (either because there is a mix of male and female, or non-gendered deities), such as Hinduism, Jainism and Paganism? Or even Dianistic traditions within Paganism which are goddess-worshipping?

@Krakinou Are you sure that you are up to date with your understanding of modern teaching from the Anglicans, Free Churches and even the Roman Catholic church. The ordination of women will continue.
Deep thoughts and scholarship has moved on from omnipotence. I have not encountered that in a long time.
There will be fewer dogmatic statements and more about the teaching of Jesus.
I have no knowledge of other religions.

This.
I was on twitter when the uncensored video, taken by Hamas, of the massacre was being live broadcast and shared. Some popped up on my timeline. I can't unsee that. I know what happened, I believe the witnesses.

Being GC surely means being aware of how the media chooses to amplify some voices and not others, we've seen the BBC, for example, promoting the drag Queen agenda and not reporting on crimes committed by trans activists. Being GC means, for me, taking a critical approach to what I am being fed by mainstream media and needing to do a deep dive into other sources - it means being CRITICAL of all of them and having to make judgments about which to trust and which not to trust. I follow a couple of British ex army officers who are middle east experts and post insightful analysis of what is actually happening on the ground. One is Andrew Fox who says there is absolutely not a genocide being enacted by the Israelis against Gaza "there have been more bombs dropped than people killed" the Israelis are very careful not to harm civilians where possible, it is Hamas who build their bomb launching sites in hospitals.

I also happen to know a fair amount about the history of that region, I recognise the lazy lies being told - I'm old enough to remember all of the attacks on Israel since the 6 day war in '67. I know who attacked who, I watched the Camp David accords with great hope - I had even more hope for the agreement being thrashed out by Bill Clinton in 2000 which gave the Palestinians their own state with the whole of Gaza and the West Bank, part of Israel, and a capital in East Jerusalem - the two state solution everyone is now calling for was there on the table. They walked away. Clinton says he realised they did not want their own state - they wanted the complete extermination of the state of Israel. Hamas is a death cult.

That wouldn't have been a proportional response, and neither is the reported (from Israeli figures) around 85% civilian deaths in Gaza.
This is typical of the misinformation and propaganda being circulated.
The Israel Data, (which is disputed) states 23% of deaths were named fighters i.e. known and targeted individuals. You cannot assume the rest were 'civilians'. 'Civilians' housed hostages, and are employed as journalists etc by Hamas and are active in hand to hand fighting. It's just their names aren't known.

The deaths of women and children is always terrible........but you are aware that Hamas is happy to sacrifice them as martyrs, as this furthers their cause? Leaders have openly spoke about" our women's wombs are our weapons".....and that is why there are still so many babies being born, even in such terrible conditions of war and displacement. You'd think the men would leave the women the fuck alone. But no!

I saw one BBC report, and i'm not sure if it was apparent to many who were watching...but one young woman was clearly being sexually abused by multiple men in the refugee camp.

Regardless of whether you agree with the current tactics being employed by Netanyahu whereby Hamas operatives are targeted, even if it means killing those around them too ( and few people do approve), it has always been apparent that the population of Gaza has actually increased over the years. If Israel really wanted to commit genocide then they are not making a very good job of it.

If Hamas cared about its own people then it would not embed itself amongst civilians; in hospitals, in camps, in schools...in the way that it does. Why do none of the pro - Palestine lot ever talk about Hamas tactics; about the way that Hamas executes its own people; steals food from the aid trucks; acts like a mafia. About the way that Hamas deploys booby traps all over the place, and on a daily baisis continues to fire missiles into Israel?

The entire world was appalled by the attack!! I have literally never seen it downplayed or excused in any way.

I had the misfortune to see the Edgware Road gathering on the night of 7 October. That was reported as a vigil for Gaza, before any Israeli strikes had happened. The few outlets that covered it made it sound like a sombre gathering for peace.

What I actually saw was a large crowd of young Muslims partying as if their team had just won the World Cup.

There were quite a few people, in the days after the attack, who were bigging it up as a "prison break". And many of us saw Owen Jones' big YouTube opus where he was going through footage of the attack and saying "I see no evidence of any rapes here".

I'm afraid there are quite a few people out there, hiding in plain sight in the Palestine movement, who think the attack was a good thing and would like to see it repeated.

The entire world was appalled by the attack!! I have literally never seen it downplayed or excused in any way.

Do you really think we should now sit back and watch Palestine get all but wiped out off the back of it and not give a shit?!

What is happening in Gaza is the equivalent of the US attempting to eradicate Afghanistan after 9-11.

That wouldn't have been a proportional response, and neither is the reported (from Israeli figures) around 85% civilian deaths in Gaza.

That's the highest percentage of civilian deaths in a war since Rwanda, and we all know what that was!

You want the argument to be black and white, but those civilians are being slaughtered and starved in shades of grey and the World is watching it happen.

Me, too. Thanks for posting that!

I agree mostly.

I think a key issue is that I've seen the argument a lot that Jews must remain a majority in Israel so they are safe, esp as they are a minority in every other country (the US, with the 2nd largest Jewish population, is around 2% Jewish)

Sometimes this is used to justify arguable settler overreach, and obvs it's understandable that some Palestinians would feel uncomfortable w Israel having the Star of David on their flag etc if it's meant to be an ethnically neutral state...

It's v hard, I lean more towards to Jewish side as they need somewhere to feel safe (obvs should be safe everywhere!) but I can see both...

Ah I see, that makes sense. If only left wing could focus on building up friendships, community etc rather than attacking things. Obvs only caring about your own family's wellbeing is bad, but so is the other extreme.

Ironically ofc any tribalism becomes rather like people who only look out for their own family & no-one else.

Thanks, just had a look. A very broad range of subjects indeed. Looks fascinating, will watch.

Agree. Yasmine Mohammed's YouTube is a pretty fascinating one because she interviews such a broad range of people from all over the Middle East. She had a guy who was a former member of the Islamic Brotherhood, Gazans, West Bank Palestinians, Israelis, Iranians.

I don't think one can really talk about Palestine in isolation. Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Yemen, etc. are all implicated and interconnected (and also often individually riven with factions and differences). Middle Eastern politics is immense. Religiously shaded, including rival factions within those religions. And tribal histories. And complicated by larger powers using it for proxy ball-swinging.

Hamas and the palestinians don't want that. They want israel gone and they want the whole country back.It's astonishing how many people don't know this.

They're not going to stop committing acts of violence until israel.No longer exists. They don't have the military capability to destroy Israel, and they know this. They should accept a deal, but they won't.

Can anyone in favour of a one state solution tell me of an Arab country in which Jews have equal rights?

I am GC, I am definitely not Pro-Israel (in the way that I think you mean) nor am I pro-Hamas.

I am pro and end to violence, and a negotiated settlement as a mechanism to a sustainable peace.

I'm not pro-Israel (I'm also not a woman, but am gender critical)

I do tend to roll my eyes at most of the pro Palestine protests though. Not because I don't think what's happening in Gaza isn't horrific. It is, as we're the attacks on Israel my Hamas.

I roll my eyes because most of those protesting don't particularly give a shit about Gaza. Just like they don't particularly care about trans rights, or Black Lives Matter, or whatever else gets rolled up into the omni-cause next week. Most of these people just protest because they want to be seen to be protesting, they want to be seen to be doing good, because that makes them feel good. They need the world to be full of goodies and baddies and they need to make it clear which side they're on.

They wouldn't be happy if the world became a peaceful utopia where everyone was happy and content, and noone ever came into conflict with each other. Because then they'd have nothing to rail against, and would have to find something else to base their entire personalities around.

I've started thinking more like this as well - though not in a "I've got the solution!" way. The two-state system would have to be properly backed by the rest of the world, and Israel not just able to shove people off land with impunity. But there seems to be no will to do that, plus the Palestinian state if run by a Hamas-like organisation does have a chance of being another Afghanistan. Which on the one hand is the business of that state, but also not something most other countries want to be involved with enabling.

It does seem (in purely conceptual terms) to make more sense for everyone who lays claim to that land to live there, in a holy land state that has citizens of various religions, either living side by side or in their own areas (CF N. Ireland (I know it's not a state), Nigeria, Lebanon etc). Since Israel does have palestinian and muslim (and other) citizens who aren't Jewish, in theory there's no reason why they can't all live as one state, but it would be better if it was a new secular state not just "the Jewish state".

Practically, there is so much bad blood between the parties involved, and Israel's claim to its own homeland is so prioritized by world powers, that I can't see a path to that being agreed or it working without civil war. But it still does seem to make the most sense, seeing as plenty of other countries manage it.

History is full of blood-soaked fights over land that went on for decades or centuries because people felt so strongly that they were the ones with the right to be there. The end result from these situations (where they are not still ongoing) may be that they figure out how to share peacefully, or ultimately some other empire comes along and wipes them off the map. Harsh but true.

I've been scratching my head over these weird, nebulous, apparently arbitrary left/right distinctions for some time, but you've put my direction of thought into clear words here. What comes through most strongly in your post is the absolutism, rigidity and herd mentality of this type of 'thinking', and I use that term loosely. If a particular brand of activitism stands up with a badge on it - or more usually a flag - stamped with some implied leftist code, the herd will follow in order not to be branded 'right' or have the entirety of their views lazily 'aligned' with extremist right-wing politics.

The inclination even to argue with such a complete absence of critical thinking, the chanting of slogans and an assumption that 'if we repeat a thing often enough that makes it true', is exhausting.

Campus politics is a good name for it. Universities are in no small part to blame for this. It's also interesting how adherents to so-called 'queer theory' apparently have no idea that their overlord Foucault was arguing from a predominantly gender critical position, or that 'intersectionality' was an account of the very real, dual discrimination black women face on account of both their sex and their race. As usual, though, these ideas are misappropriated and twisted by more privileged groups engaged in a determined race to the bottom toward 'victim' status.

How on earth Islam and Judaism did an about-face from right to left back to right again has been eluding me, but I think this is at least in part the reason. I'm disgusted with the left: it's turned right, in my view and this isn't the usual scenario of people becoming more right-wing as we get older. Look at most of the posts on FWR - 'gender' is a cross-political issue and women posting here are very obviously not on the right. I'm with @SidewaysOtter - the left, left us.

Again that boils down to the West imposing our worldview on how the rest of the planet should be.