Palestine Action protests

@Rednorth in a thread where pro-Palestinians have been criticised for their lack of critical thinking skills, it'd be highly amusing if you can't answer this

And the 'peace loving' Palestinians who boarded a bus in Jerusalem today and opened fire, killing six civilians including a pregnant woman, are you going to condemn those innocent civilian deaths? Are you going to go on a march demanding a ceasefire from Palestinians? If you're not a raging antisemite, you agree, surely, that Jews have every right to protect themselves from Palestinian terrorists who murder, rape and kidnap indiscriminately, right?

Would these be the same ‘human rights organisations’ and international legal bodies that have joined in with the ‘trans rights are human rights’ bandwagon?

If you want to say that you don’t like Bibi’s government and you think his government is mishandling Gaza, that’s fine. But if you think there’s an issue with ‘the State of Israel’, you are being groomed into anti-Semitism.

You’re being groomed into thinking that a state having a particular narrative during a war, and aiming to remove a threat during a war is somehow uniquely evil. You’re being groomed into thinking that the Israeli army can somehow achieve the miracle of not killing any innocents, while having an army made up mostly of teenagers.

If you do want to protest about a state kidnapping children, razing towns to the ground and injuring and killing civilians, you should be protesting outside the Russian embassy. I’m sure there are other examples.

This is, imo, absolutely batshit and also antisemitic.

1. it’s never out of the media. Anyone who follows the news cannot fail to be aware of the dire situation in Gaza and Israel’s actions which are causing this.

2. suggesting that Keir Starmer is being manipulated by his wife, who is Jewish, to keep Israel out of the news is antisemitic.

Also, I don't think criticism of Israel is an 'article of faith' for the Left. The Left has traditionally been grounded in its opposition to colonialism, occupation, systemic oppression, and in solidarity with marginalised peoples. Criticism of Israeli state policy therefore seems to be entirely consistent with left wing principles!

I don't believe the majority of people are saying this about the Israeli state because they are parroting antisemitic tropes; they are saying this because the state has pushed a narrative via media (state-funded ad campaigns); they have via the state conscripted IDF targeted innocents unlawfully, disproportionately, and deliberately (sources from various human rights groups); they are committing a genocide (source: various human rights organisations, international legal bodies, genocide scholars) which wouldn't unreasonably be described as "evil"... If it walks like a duck, etc etc.

I'm sure there will be some who are indeed both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, but especially looking at the growing Jewish opposition to the Israeli government's actions, it seems very clear that this is not a "Jewish" issue but a "State of Israel" one.

My usual rule of thumb is to see if they know which two countries border Gaza and which two countries border the West Bank. Without Googling.

I think it is both about the organisation not being a "violent" as has been made out - hardly Taliban level which we seem to be happy to ignore and let them subjugate women. Also the fact the genocide is being continued and the only voice pointing it out that gets reported in the media at all is when pensioners throw themselves under the bus. It's deliberate because our media are hiding the genocide and our govt is enabling it to continue. The only thing I can think is Starmer is being held over the fire by his wife or her family to keep it out of the press and keep it going until the IDF take over the land. No thought to where the refugees will go, of course. Get ready to welcome Farage into No 10 when they do arrive on the small boats.

Of course not. The poster has revealed all that is needed to know about her and her world view; which we already knew anyway.

No reasoned response to my post nor recognition of the trouble I'd taken to provide the evidence requested....just one liners, accusations and name calling.

There you go. You cannot see past your own ideology, and that makes you part of the problem, not the solution.

And I find this post particularly unpleasant considering the shooting that has occurred today in Jerusalem...but Israel, boo hiss boo hey?

I'm also curious whether Hamas are going to get called 'evil'.

Do you think any other states in the world are 'evil' or do you only apply that particular description to Israel?

The Israeli State is evil.

The point is not just to protest but to break the law en masse, making the prohibition of manifestations of support for PA prohibitively costly to to enforce. If the authorities were to turn a blind eye to the law-breaking it'd be more "two-tier policing"; continuing the arrests and proceeding to trials risks a backlash from not only from supporters of PA or freedom of speech, but from those who'd see it simply as a huge waste of police and court resources.

I hear many anti-Zionists say that it’s not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel. That anti-semitism is being ‘weaponised’ etc. Obviously theoretically it’s true that criticism of the state of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic, but often these people are not seeing what they are part of. Anyone with a historic understanding of anti-semitism can see the same narratives rolling around: uniquely evil, killing innocents for pleasure, world domination, scheming, control of the media. Since time immemorial people have held these beliefs because they think that it’s not prejudice but the truth. Roald Dahl, who was notoriously anti-Semitic, said “Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”

The clear relevance to being GC is the ability to question your own beliefs and the received wisdom. You might still come down against the Israeli actions in Gaza but you are likely to do so with less black and white thinking.

A twelve year old boy interviews an anti Israel protestor:

Some images of marchers against Israel, and an old Russian propoganda poster

For quite a few younger people it starts on university campuses. Here are a few flyers that were posted around my local university campus. Groups such as the SWP have stalls and give talks and teach about how evil Israel is. The language is always about 'fighting' and 'smashing'. At a young age people are inculcated into an ideological worldview in which israel can only be evil.

Some of the roots of this are far older, and go back to communist Russia and to communist narratives generally.

Well, I'd agree, but I suspect at least some of the protestors are attempting to do the former by apparently doing the latter. It may not be very bright, but I'd also say that as a government trying to maintain the peace and avoid civil unrest, dragging off and arresting elderly people for wearing a T shirt is also not very bright.

I've seen plenty of clips of people on marches in more recent times ( being interviewed or asked questions), and I know from personal observation and experience over the years of having been around Left wing circles.

Much of it just cycles back to general anti semitic tropes and conspiracies about 'world domination', 'capitalism', 'the Rothschild's,' Imperialism' etc.

Long before October 7th.....Israel has always been a central rallying point for the Left......it started when British Leftists joined forces with the Baathists with their vision for International Socialism. Lefties have been wearing shemags forever. And many new recruits don't know the first thing about the long history of the conflict, or of Zionism, or of the terrorist activities of the PLO and so on.

Most of which you see is here is people striving for balance in the face of rabid Israel hatred which permits for no virtues, only evils; and which totally ignores the Hamas mission to totally destroy Israel and kill all jews.

Neil Basu, former head of UK counterterrorism policing, who reviewed segments of the more than 100 hours of footage secretly recorded by ITV News, described Active Club England as the "successor to National Action", the banned far-right terror group that was outlawed after celebrating the murder of MP Jo Cox.

So the previous incarnation of this group was proscribed as terrorists? And this group has managed to stay on the right side of the law so far but could be proscribed as terrorists if they do not?

I'm not sure what your point is.

Not as moronic as you might think.

www.itv.com/news/2025-02-11/undercover-footage-shows-far-right-group-preparing-for-race-war

I think if a group with Islamist links or a group with far right links had done the same thing (which is destroy British military equipment) people would be a bit clearer on where they stand on this,

I mean they are being investigated for getting funding from Iran, that may be a nothingburger but as I said previously theres a lot we don’t actually know and there was enough for the British legal system to think the government was being reasonable.

Did they have a manual and “cells” because PA do. This is what I mean about planned and organised.

Which is different from a bunch of morons on facebook convincing other morons to join them in doing something stupid and nasty.