Why are so many GC women pro-Israel?

What Hamas did to the Israeli people they caught on October 7 was disgusting and appalling. What the Israeli government is doing now to the Gazans is also disgusting and appalling. These views are unconnected to my GC views thank you. B@&ger off with your “all GC people think like this” crap.

Don’t conflate two entirely different issues op. GC does not = racist. Obviously. Don’t talk shite there’s enough of it about!

I'm pro-Palestinian and always have been.

That doesn't mean I'm totally unsympathetic to the Israelis. I understand why Israel was founded. I can see that october 7th was a horrific attack.

But the way Israel has behaved, including long before october 7th, is awful.

I'm not pro-Israel, I'm anti-Hamas.

I've noticed that GC accounts on Twitter are a bit more likely to be sympathetic to Israel. TRAs tend to be almost entirely anti Israel. So I've seen the same correlation the OP has although it certainly doesn't mean GC=Pro Israel (and I don't know that's what the OP was saying).

As to why that correlation exists, I think it's that GCs have learned that you can't rely on organizations like Amnesty International and unfortunately the BBC often misrepresents things. If you're GC you're most likely clued into the fact that rights aren't actually a pie and sometimes ethical problems have no feel-good answer.

The OP and one or two others seem to think being pro-Israel is racist or means you like oppression. Israel is by no means perfect and there is a dangerous right-wing component. But it grants equal rights to people of all religions and none, women and gay people. There are Muslims and Arab Christians in the Knesset. Many of the people brutally murdered on 7th October were leftwing and deeply sympathetic to Gazans, like Vivian Silver who regularly drove Palestinians from Gaza to Israeli hospitals. Hamas invaded on 7th October using information from Palestinians who worked with the people who were to be murdered.

Someone in the thread said Israelis demonstrate against their government but Gazans can't. Tragically, they have. A few times. There were demonstrations in Gaza against Hamas before 7th October. Gazans took their lives in their hands and held signs that said "We want to live". They were protesting Hamas' oppression of Gazans and the fact that is extremely difficult to get a decent job if you are not a member of Hamas. Nobody seemed to care, it was barely reported and was ignored by Al Jazeera.
One protestor was Hamza Howidy who was imprisoned twice by Hamas before being smuggled out of the country. He's given interviews about what it's like living under Hamas. The one with Jasmine Mohammed on YouTube is quite good.

Regarding the idea that Israel is colonial, Israel exists because Jewish people had nowhere else to go. In the early years of the movement for European Jews to settle there, most Jews weren't interested. It was after sustained pogroms across Europe, and after America closed its doors to Jews in I think 1908, that in desperation European Jews ended up there. Many Israelis aren't of European descent at all, they are Jewish people expelled from Arab countries. There are barely any Jews living in any Arab countries, because they can't. The recent attacks on Jews in America and Europe has only convinced some Jewish people of the need for Israel.

I care about Palestinians, and I don't see how they can ever have a chance if Hamas continues to exist. I care about Israelis and I think Israel has a right to exist. The death toll and suffering of this war is immense. I wish Israel had better leaders. All of these things can be true at the same time.

I understand the hostile reaction because there are a tedious amount of posts desperately trying to suggest that being critical of gender is akin to racism, despite the stupidly illogical nature of that argument.

And yes, feminism has been forced into a corner on this board and many posters name change for other topics.

But I have encountered what OP speaks of in real life. I think that there is a similarity between people protesting Israel's treatment of Palestinians being wrongly smeared as pro Hamas, and women protesting for their rights being wrongly smeared as anti LGBTQ. Horrificly biased reporting on Israel in the right wing press and feminism in the left wing press really doesn't help.

It also doesn't help that the aggressive macho protest TRAs appropriate every other cause for their agenda as PP mentioned. It puts me off attending various protests and marches.

I’m neither right wing nor racist, and am GC and pro-Israel. In my view, there is no contradiction between the latter two. I believe in self-determination for biological women, and for the Jewish people to have a homeland in the place that’s central to our religion and culture. The violence of the TRA movement is akin to that of the pro-Pal/pro-Hamas movement.

This is a great post. For most of us we don’t have a connection to this conflict and it’s a very complicated, historical situation which most people don’t truly understand, and I think is why some hesitate to comment. Anyone with an ounce of humanity can see that there is horror and suffering involved, especially for women and children, which no one would condone.

I had a very interesting conversation with a Palestinian young woman I met recently, and she said one of the things that upsets her the most is people in the public eye spouting their views on this issue, on either side, when it’s clear they really don’t understand the nuance, and are just whipping up more hatred. There’s a lot of bullying behaviour these days where it’s demanded of people that they pick a side on absolutely every issue, otherwise you are seen as a terrible person who isn’t bothered about suffering. The little prick Owen Jones harasses JKR on a regular basis about this issue, ‘why don’t you condemn x,y, z, why are you so hateful, you don’t care about ALL women’ etc. etc. We don’t all have to have a vocal opinion on everything, it doesn’t mean people don’t care if they stay silent.

Using the word colonialism rather suggests you're completely ignorant of the history of the area and should be doing a lot more research before you speak on the subject.

Hey ladies.

We are going to give you a 'sex and gender' board where you have to keep all your 'sex and gender discussions' and carefully monitor you and your words and don't say anything that might upset anyone's applecart.

Then:

Why are all GC women silent on a topic that is nothing to do with sex and gender? You must all be right wing bigots.

Sigh.

So you obviously have some examples to share, because without them how can anyone comment?

Do you think it is somehow impossible to be appalled by both?
And “parrot genocide”? What an awful thing to say.

But I’m pretty sure Palestinian women have been getting raped and tortured (and killed, and their infant children killed) for years. It’s just that they are treated by the western media as lesser, so it’s not been widely reported on.

I’ve been wondering the same thing as @Krakinou . Especially on X, very many of the GC / terf accounts have Israeli flags.

Both are complex issues, it’s not really helpful if one is associated with the other.

OP, isn’t there already a pile of Isreal/Palestine threads on a dedicated forum on this site to discuss colonialism, terrorism, etc? I can see you’ve happily gone looking for someone to engage here on it.

This is a forum for women across the political spectrum to wonder at how the hell we ended up with all our institutions insisting that men can be women if they say they are, and the impacts this magical thinking has on the rights women have had to fight for. Trying to start a fight club over Isreal/Gaza here will likely just get this thread moved.

The problem is that with TWAW, the Left, especially the Greens in most Western democratic countries, deeply betrayed the women who disproportionately supported that line of politics, in the belief that our interests and concerns were best represented there. Until a few years ago I would have been at any anti war protest going, and I have always had a deep sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Now I stay away from any political movement that I suspect holds me in contempt for refusing to believe in gender ideology. Maybe ultimately the goal of GI was to separate socially minded people from each other and to fracture the Left beyond repair. JKR has warned the Labour Party many times about this. But, so be it. I refuse to march alongside anyone who believes women to be costumes. I don’t care what else they believe. If they believe that, I will not be any sort of tea lady or flag bearer for their virtue signalling parades. Palestine/Israel is infinitely complicated and unsolvable. No amount of white or brown, middle class, western guilt or banner waving will make any difference to the horror that is unfolding there.

I don’t know anyone who is vocally pro-Israel GC or not. I don’t think there is necessarily a link. To your other point, the GC people I know are probably also the most leftist people I know.

You are conflating two separate issues. It is not left or right wing to not want people raped or killed or women’s rights destroyed. It is being a human.

I get what you are saying, OP, and share your feeling.

I'm pro Israel but that doesn't mean I'm anti Palestinians or think Netanyahu has conducted the war ethically. Several posts here , on both sides, seem to want it to be very black and white, but it's not.

This conflict has been happening for over 100 years. It is impossible for anyone to have any type of unbiased view on the situation.

Being that I am neither Muslim or Jewish I don’t have to have any opinion on the conflict outside of my personal feelings. Nothing I do or say is valuable to the conflict but I can say that committing a horrific terrorist attack on unarmed people and starving thousands to death are heinous acts without justification.

Ceasefire is the only way forward.

Don't know about the bigger picture, but this is what bothers me: Hamas is given a free pass based - as far as I can tell - purely on their comparative lack of weaponry.

(Yes, Netanyahu & Co's aggression has morphed far beyond revenge into a naked land grab no matter the cost in suffering. Yes, that's revolting and should have stopped before it started.)

But ONLY because Hamas can't win does not make them the good guys. I think maybe GC women see that more clearly because they also see clearly how atrociously they treat women. Just one example: Hamas could end the suffering in Gaza by admitting defeat and not fighting. But somehow it's not up to them to take care of Gazans. It's up to the UN. (https://archive.is/cPeRD Mousa Abu Marzouk, deputy leader, based in Qatar. I'm not making this up.)

Israelis demonstrate against the government; Gazans would be taking their life in their hands to do the same against Hamas. Hamas murders gays, not "just" women. Etc etc etc. They are appalling vicious religious fanatics.

That doesn't change the fact that Netanyahu and his right wing power-sharing religious Jewish fundies are also appalling and unprincipled. Two things can be true at the same time.

Anyway, I guess this is a long way of saying what Hamas and the patriarchy generally have in common is being anti-woman. So being GC will tend to set you against both. Which doesn't, or shouldn't, make anyone favour Netanyahu's current horrible policies.

I don’t think anti-colonialism is particularly left wing.

logically atheist and frankly anti-religion

Then you'd agree with those GC feminists who are anti-Muslim, then.

So what's your point?

I disagree profoundly with your analysis
I don't see anti-colonialism as left wing. More post modernist dogma. That doesn't mean I support colonialism just that I'm very aware of Islam and it's colonial past which the left ignores preferring to adopt anti semitism.
How on earth do you think a one state secular solution is feasible? You do realise Israel is secular and not a theocracy?

I no longer believe in using left and right to describe political positions as it just leads to dogmatic tribal thinking.
I haven't voted for about 5 years now because no political party represents my position, and I am not going be chastised for not being 'left wing' enough.