Why are so many GC women pro-Israel?

Hamas is the elected and overwhelmingly supported government of Palestine. The members of Hamas are Palestinian people.

I am pro-Israel (but furious about the continued bombardment of Gaza, which I lay mostly to the blame of Hamas but also to Netanyahu) for two reasons. The first is the holocaust of 7th Oct 23 when Israeli women and children were subjected to horrific abuse and murder by Hamas and their fellow-travellers and also by 'ordinary' Gazans who cheered the display of those women's bodies through Gaza. Secondly, I see Israel as the first line of defence of the West and its civilization - I am a socialist but social conservative, if that helps explain my stance, and I am also in favour of the Enlightenment settlement in Europe.
I am appalled - as are many - by the condemnation of Israel in the wake of 7th October, rather than Hamas and Gazans. I am also appalled by the number of women who deny that rape and murder took place in Israel on 7th Oct - note that the UN has now accepted that this did take place and that Hamas is culpable.
So, I stand with Israel and want the release of the hostages, living and dead. I am aware it is not a popular position to hold, but then I am a GR rad fem, so I know about holding unpopular beliefs (and holding my tongue on them, too).

Have you been looking on twitter, the most polarized platform there is? We can all agree on some things. I agree with Nigel Garage that HS2 shouldn't have been started but we come at it from different angles and there isn't much else, if anything, we agree on. But a lot of people are tribal and go along with things without thinking for themselves. That's why we are where we are with trans and women's rights.

There is only one nominally jewish state, meanwhile there are many multiples of Muslim or Islamic states or Christian states. Zionism is simply holding to a feeling for a jewish homeland in which jewish people can be free of the sorts of state persecution they have been subject to for millenia.

Israel is not a religious country, it is a secular democracy but one which is jewish supportive.

The 'team view' of much of the left is relentlessly, automatically and uncritically anti Israel and always has been.

I totally agree with you OP, there is a notable Gc/ pro Zionism thing going on and I find it really depressing. I don’t believe in God. I think the forced teaming for the other side led many to this.

You are confusing the people of Palestine with Hamas

There are also lots of right wing groups that are anti semitic.

Israel is a secular country not a religious theocracy...even if it is supportive of Judaism and its practices. Not every Israeli is religious, and many jewish citizens are culturally jewish rather than religiously observant. Arabs and muslims have seats in the knesset and are occupy all positions and roles in Israeli society.

For me it is not about being 'anti Muslim' or 'anti Gaza', but rather anti Hamas and supportive of Israel as a sovereign country with a right to exist. Hamas is a murderous, extremely religious terror organisation that is devoted to killing all jews and to the total destruction of Israel. The atrocities that were committed on October 7th 2023 were predicated on total hatred and dehumanisation.
Israel with drew from Gaza entirely in 2006........what did the people in Gaza do.....they elected Hamas, rather than seek to build up a viable state....and Hamas built tunnels and enriched its leaders using international aid money, whilst it plotted Israel's destruction.

I think women who have struggled for years with the trans/gender ideology movement have come to give a lot of thought to issues around boundaries and borders and to the discrete rights of different groups and how to accommodate the needs of different groups. Israel exists and it is a modern, democratic country in which all citizens have the vote and equal rights ( including the 20% of the population that is Arab - muslim). Palestinian leadership, over the decades, have consistently turned down proposals for a two state solution.

All of the calls of 'From the river to the sea' are calling for the destruction of Israel. Unfortunately there are now a group of religious hard-liners in Israel too...who simply don't believe that a two state solution is ever possible, or even desirable. This will have to be dealt with very firmly going forward but is one of the consequneces of this interminable saga.

For many on the extreme Left Israel has long been central to their political ideology....with its anti westernism and anti capitalism etc more generally. Beneath that there does lie a seam of anti semitism, regardless of what many will say to the contrary Jewish people and capitalism have long been associated on a subliminal level; and scratch the surface you often discover tropes about the Rothschilds and about sinister jewish conspiracies.

For many of us who used to identify with the Left there has come a profound re-assessment in the light of the way that the Left/'progressives' have become subsumed in the politics of identity and victimisation....and at the expense of the dignity,integrity and protections of women and girls. Many have come to adhere more to a pragmatic, realistic politics that recognises that it is not so much about airy ideals and individual freedoms so much as working to accommodate and balance competing needs and desires.

No, I can't say I have seen this at all.

Do you have any examples?

It was interesting that the op chose the title of the thread is why are so many GC women pro Israel but if that premise is going by that thread on Corbyns new party, it hardly mentions Israel at all.

So is that premise of being pro-Israel based on assumptions that posters using corbyns nickname ‘jezbollah’ were pro Israel? Likewise an assumption anyone concerned or puzzled that the UK has MPs for Gaza must be pro-Israel? I didn’t read every single post but I did not see posts making sweeping statements about Muslims marrying cousins etc.

First, having feminist concerns about Islam’s conservative views on women does not automatically make someone pro-Israel. Christian conservatism or Orthodox Jewish tenets are equally concerning for women. Not to mention that being supportive of Israel as a country does not automatically mean being supportive of Netanyahu’s government or what they’re doing to the Palestinian people. Do you condemn all Russians for Putin’s assault on Ukraine?

So @Krakinou what are your real concerns here?

doesn't mean GC=Pro Israel (and I don't know that's what the OP was saying) That’s literally the title of the thread, but if that’s not what the OP’s saying, it’d be good to have clarification.

Many accounts on X have the trans pride flag and the Palestinian flag on their profile. It’s been that way for many years, long before Oct 7. Pride marches around the world have been excluding or attempting to exclude Jewish (oh sorry, ‘Zionist’) groups also for years. It’s a bizarre and, on the surface, illogical pairing and it long predates the one you’re talking about. Because the very obvious irony is that the only place in the Middle East where gay and trans people are free to be themselves is Israel.

Sorry what's GC? Thank you

I'm so sick of the narrative of one of the most most complex geo-political issues to exist being turned into a football match. Are you pro-Israel? Pro-Palestine? Pick a team, pick a side!

Don't try to see nuance, and definitely don't say you'd need to understand more to form an opinion! Watch this 20 second video on TikTok, read this single post on Twitter and then choose your team, wear the shirt, pick your flag.

Politics as a form of tribalism to fit in with your dinner set. How utterly fucking depressing.

I noticed this more at the beginning of the conflict, when there were a lot of hard leftists who thought it was absolutely fine for Hamas to rape, kill and imprison thousands of people. There does seem to be a significant crossover between these leftists and the worst TRAs. So I absolutely understand why GC women were primed to notice these people's horrible prejudice and provide some balance. I wonder if the TRAs' desire to destroy women's sex-based rights and the very concept of woman has also made GC women understand and be horrified by the Western Hamas supporters' desire to obliterate Israel and Israelis.

I've noticed it much less recently as the Israeli government has become ever more crazed and brutal; very few GC women are in favour of indiscriminately killing and starving civilians.

Isn't tribalism part of thr problem and the reason we got into this mess in the first place.

Beliefs shouldn't come as a ''set'.

Let's say my favourite breakfast is avocado and eggs, that doesn't mean I have to also love salmon and salad for lunch and lentils for dinner.

I can love eggs and avocado for breakfast, whilst having a sausage sandwich for lunch and nachos for dinner.

I do think there’s an element of forced teaming. I also think people are really fucked off. Being kind doesn’t seem t get you anywhere. I believe that men who grow up in mysoginistic environments are more likely to abuse women. I don’t think it’s necessarily to do with race or religion. It’s impossible to say in a way that doesn’t sound really racist though!

Certainly in my own pasty white, Christian or communist ( there was a fair bit of communism in the 1930’s in industrial areas of Scotland) family there was a strong line in wife/ child beating 60 years plus ago. I’m not saying all men did this but it was a common way to deal with problems. Misbehave in school and you’d get the belt / caning then you’d go home and get the belt again. No tea on the table when you get home, football team lost, smack your wife, or rape her as consent was assumed legally speaking.

Our society has changed for the better, however it’s slow going and there is lots of backsliding. I used to be more tolerant as I assumed there was a relentless push towards, equality and fairness and essentially we’d all become Scandinavian over the years. I don’t think that’s the case anymore, democracy is on the decline, people are quite happy to chuck women’s rights under a bus. Polite and middle ground discussion just gets shouted down and condemned so people either shut up or it becomes more vitriolic and divisive.

I genuinely miss the days where you could disagree with someone and have a bit of reasoned debate in the pub and still be friends. Agree to disagree about x or y but in agreement about many other issues. Society seems much more polarised than it used to be before the rise of the internet reduced capacity for critical analysis.

There's no real logic behind force-teaming Palestine with the left. That's omnicause polics, not rational analysis. Palestine, after all, is not a country with a left-wing ethos even though there's always been an undercurrent of the worst Left ising it as an excuse for their racist antisemitism.

There's also a sense of cosseting as though Palestine is totally innocent and without agency and just suffering from whatever Israel does to it - the current war was started not only with Palestine's unspeakable terrorist attack but also with what Palestine claims was 5000 missiles fired on Israel. The Israeli death toll from the tens of thousands of missiles Palestine has fired since they started the war would be extremely high, except Israel has invested in a highly effective defence system for its people.

Right wing views
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Jews and women find themselves in the bizarre position of being told they are aggressors when all they have tried to do is protect themselves from a very vocal existential threat coming from the people who have traditionally aggressed THEM over millennia.

Jews and GC women are natural allies in having been forced to fight hard for their position in the world.

I'm GC and strongly pro-Palestine.

I think it is false to claim that GC women are more likely to be pro-Israel.

What I do see on Mumsnet quite often is women who are both GC and pro-Israel attempting to denigrate pro-Palestinian voices by referencing something called the 'Omnicause' -- claiming (on zero evidence) that leftists who speak out against Israeli aggression are also rabid TRAs, etc.

It is just one of the many ways in which pro-Israeli voices attempt to problematise support for people who are being subjected to the most appalling aggression in Gaza.

I've always just silently tutted and moved on when I see this garbage about the omnicause. But this thread has brought home to me how it can be exploited by TRAs to tarnish GC voices.

There are loads and loads of pro-Palestinian GC women. I hope that as many as possible of them shout about it on this thread.

As a woman, I know that I would prefer to live in Israel rather than Palestine.

I know that wars are bad (Gross oversimplification), but that 'just stop fighting' isn't an answer, and that for nearly a century, they've been trying to find one without much success.

I also know that murdering young people at a music festival, slaughtering and kidnapping families to start a war, then continuing to refuse to return the hostages to end it requires a response that is more than words.

I also know that there's been a continuous propaganda war around Palestine, even before this (describing fully fledged cities as 'camps'), and now with the sheer number of lies (both blatant, and carefully worded half-truths), AI pictures etc. that as a result I can't trust anything anyone says about it. So I fall back to the fact that Hamas committed an atrocity and continues to hold hostages at the expense of their own population.

It's not about colonialism or religion, it's about the need, for the safety of all Jews, for Israel to be both democratic and majority Jewish. It's not an ideal situation to have ended up in, but it is what it is.

Wishing for a single multiethnic state is wishing for the death of the Jews.

Criticising Israel's actions is not antisemitism, but it isn't anti-Zionism either. The many Israeli Jews who are against the relentless squeeze that the Palestinians have been subjected to since 1967 would be appalled to be described as anti-Zionists.

Jews and women don't have a common cause, but they do have some common enemies, including the sort of self-regarding nitwit who always supports the underdog, but is utterly callous as to the POV, or even basic safety, of the people (Zionists, TERFs) that he has cast in his own mind as the all-powerful bullies.

Probably down to GC feminists not being the type to falsify preferences.

To be publicly GC, you've already had to push back against prevailing social pressure. You've already met the challenge of voicing a view that puts your social capital at risk.

One suspects lots of people actually silently understand Israel's response to an act of terrorism. i.e. The assumed general population support for Palestine isn't as high as one might estimate at first glance.

This isn't to say that all GC feminists support Israel's response. It's to say that's why you might observe higher relative rates of open Israel support amongst the cohort.