Why does Palestine bring out such strong feelings?

[Saveusename]

I really don’t want this to become about individuals’ feelings about the conflict. There are plenty of threads for that.

I am interested in why Palestine provokes such a strong feelings about civilian in Britain. We didn’t see weekly marches and such intense, passionate feelings regarding any other conflicts over in, say, the past ten years (Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, Congo, Somalia, and, of course, Ukraine). These all involve thousands of civilian casualties caused by conflict.

What is it about Palestine in particular that causes British people to feel so passionately about it?

Someone said to me today that, for them, it was the most pressing political issue. They have never even mentioned any of the other conflicts above. It got me thinking about it. If you care greatly about what happens in Palestine, why Palestine and not the other conflicts?

Please don’t come on and say you care about them all. It might be true but there is no doubt that the reaction to what’s happening in Palestine in Britain is much greater than the rest, which barely cause a murmur.

It's not that Hamas have won the propaganda war. They haven't. It's well accepted that they'll play no part in any future Palestinian government. Hamas are pretty much over.

Israel, under Netenyahu, lost it. The war in Gaza has been a disaster for Israel. Benjamin Netenyahu has been a disaster for Israel.

I will sigh with relief for every hostage released.
I will sigh with relief for every family reunited.
I will sigh with relief for every person fed.
I will sigh with relief for every parent not having to fear what the next day will bring.

Relief is a powerful feeling.❤️

It's well accepted that they'll play no part in any future Palestinian government. Hamas are pretty much over.

No it isn’t. Hamas isn’t going anywhere.

I am Irish so that hugely influences my perspective. Ireland and Palestine are both countries that have been colonized. British officers left the North of Ireland and went to Palestine after the Palestinian Mandate ( look up theiir actions). In the 1970s and 1980s Sinn Fein delegates attended PLO conferences. History is taught in different ways in different countries and from conversations from many friends in the UK, they were unaware of the devastation that Colonizing really caused. Genuinely no offence is meant by the above. None of us are responsible for the actions of their ancestors but its good to know how history shaped the world in which we live.

Hamas signed up to this agreement. As did Netenyahu's government. And many others in the USA, the ME and Europe.

I understand your lack of trust, it is shared across the spectrum.😕

So is the sense of relief and hope that this agreement has brought to people in Israel and Gaza.❤️

There aren't many countries which haven't been impacted by colonisation. It's part of human history. . Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire which dominated that part of the world for some time as a legacy of the Medieval Islamic Empire.

I'm not sure that the creation of a mono-ethnic state is so unusual in 20th Century.
Europe and the near East were much more diverse in the 19th century. There have been HUGE population shifts - mass migration - to create nation states of mono-lingual peoples.
The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the displacement of German speaking peoples from Eastern and Central Europe after WWII (12 million people), Albania, Yugoslavia, North Africa, so many places where mass migration of linguistic / ethnic minorities happened to allow nation states to be more cohesive (was the theory).
I think there was an assumption, after the six days' war, that Arabic speaking people on the West Bank would migrate to Jordan, and Arabic speaking people in Gaza would migrate to Egypt, to create monocultural/lingual populations in each state. Exactly as had been happening over and over in Europe and the Near East.
I'm not saying that assumption is ok, just that it's not a stand-out difference from many other conflicts that don't arouse the same certainty, or the same football-esque rooting for "my" side, as other conflicts.

It's a bit disingenuous to compare ancient colonisation with recent colonisation that is still part of human memory
I'm puzzled by the mobilisation of support for gaza too.. although horrified by both sides now we have been made aware.
Support for Palestine in Ireland has been going on for years. A local pub here has flown a Palestinian flag alongside an Irish one at least 10 years ago.
I'd say there is some manipulation going on in the background of social media etc... however maybe there is something about Bethlehem Palestine being part of the story of Christianity that stirs something in lapsed but nostalgic Christians.

Just making a point about the oft referred to "colonialism". Perhaps Pakistan would be a good comparison, created in 1947 as an ethno religious state, territory disputed? Sadly, significant bloodshed.
Have a look at @Imbrocator 's post at 22.45.
In all honesty, my point is that it's complicated and I'm just noting the most usual points which get reduced to slogans and chants. I know you're not doing that, and I'm not saying that you don't have a point, just that it's very complicated. I thought the Abraham Accords would hold, they did not. I hope this peace holds.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/aug/21/revealed-israeli-militarys-own-data-indicates-civilian-death-rate-of-83-in-gaza-war

There's a bar chart (and the rest of the information) show that in our current time Gaza has experiences a death toll rarely seen. It's up there with the other genocides. The Israeli government record the data themselves. I hope this helps answer your question OP

Conflicts between whites and Christians are definitely cared more about than say, the state of Liberia share.google/YPS4Rz2eSUv1eTA0d

But Palestine is cared about a great deal more than Ukraine.

Fashions change. People get bored.

Nobody’s arguing that Israel shouldn’t defend itself but defence doesn’t justify war crimes. You can respond to an attack without starving, displacing and bombing civilians. That’s the whole point of international law- to stop people using “we’re at war” as a free pass for collective punishment.

If the aim was really to get Hamas, why have so many families, aid workers and children been killed? That’s not self-defence- it’s indiscriminate.

Also, this:
In TWO YEARS, Palestinian children account for 30% of the death toll (so far). A rough comparison:

Syria 2011-23 5-6%
Yemen 2015-2023 10-15%
Iraq 2003-2011 9%

• 40,000 orphans
• Highest number of child amputees in the world.
• Nearly 20,000 children killed and hundreds of children and counting simply dead from starvation due to a man made blockade on food and supplies- newborn babies have starved to death.
• No education for two years.
• 1 million children displaced and homeless.
• 49% want to die because of the conflict.

Blocking aid, bombing bakeries, attacking distribution points, and denying formula to babies is not "defeating Hamas." It's collective punishment and under international law, it is a war crime.

In the last few months alone Israel has bombed:

• Palestine
• Lebanon
• Syria
• Tunisia
• Qatar
• Yemen

Is this the behaviour of a ‘victim’?

1 sentence in the UN report regarding Israel's ‘defending themselves’ in Gaza:
"Israeli security forces shot at & killed civilians, including children who were holding makeshift white flags. Some children, including toddlers, were shot in the head by snipers."

I understand it was Hamas's tactics. Putting civilians in danger and not allowing them into the tunnels like the Ukrainians are allowed to do during an attack. It's a terrible situation for the Palestinian people to be in but hopefully Hamas will lose power.

No it isn't.

Did the UK open up to Palestinians the way it did to Ukrainians? No, it didn't. Has the UK sanctioned Israel? No, it hasn't.

It’s an interesting question. For me personally I just feel a bit more complicit in it. The city I live is home to an Israeli owned arms factory, I know my taxes have help fund Israel so in a roundabout way have contributed to the death of children, a lot of the things I’ve purchased until I looked into it further have also helped fund the IDF and of course the U.K. has inadvertently created a situation when Isreal has enough support to be an aggressor in the Middle East. I just feel like too much of my money has contributed to this for me to stay quiet.

I also, until fairly recently accepted without question the idea of a need for a Jewish homeland. And I still do but I have to ask myself if I really believe that, then what price are we willing to pay for it. How many children have to die in order to achieve that and also what is the difference between a homeland and an ethnostate - where would the uk draw the line at supporting it.

Lastly I also think it’s an issue where a certain amount of brainwashing will have taken place so in order to see the bigger picture, people will have to shed years and years of messages they’ve received. I often think the media still promotes nationalism by looking at things out of context - so looking at an event and labelling the perpetrators terrorists but not looking at the issues leading up to that. I’ve not worded this well, and I don’t want this to be misconstrued as support for Hamas or the idf, because I support neither. More that a lot of newspaper reporting fails to convey nuances and context to people.

The Palestinians were the ones that invaded Israel so starred the war? Bit weird if the UK was opened up to them like the Ukrainians.

Indeed.

Haven’t seen any weekly marches for Ukraine either.

There were weekly marches for Ukraine when the war started. At the time there were many voices crying "whatabout..., why is Ukraine more important than xyz". Mostly from RW culture warriors and trolls.

Its factually untrue that Palestine is cared about a great deal more than Ukraine by the UK @Saveusename.

Not to mention the constant tured old 'caring about Palestinians is anti-semitism' trope

Absolute bollocks.

How can you possibly, shamelessly, attempt to argue that Ukraine has attracted the same or more attention from protestors and marchers and shouters and chanters and placard wavers, than Gaza?

Great question - I often wonder the same thing. 1 in 5 children live in poverty in the UK - I do not see people taking to the streets about this.

Of course the Gaza scenes and whats going on has been horrific. But we could do with some of the protesting about our own current country.

The UK accepted around 1/4 million refugees from Ukraine. How many refugees did we take in from Gaza?

The UK provided arms to Ukraine. They did not provide arms to Palestinians.

The UK sanctioned Russia which significantly contributed to the CoL crisis. The UK continues to sell arms to Israel, it has not sanctioned them.

The OP said Palestine is cared about a great deal more than Ukraine. That is demonstrably, factually untrue and I will say it without any shame.

Everything you‘ve said is about government reaction or policy, including the previous government. That has nothing to do with the scale and nature of the endless assembly of baying mobs who’ve marched and shouted against Israel - including constantly calling for its elimination - since the pogrom of Oct 7th. It has nothing to do with the fungal growth of aggressively, relentlessly anti-Israel campaign groups. It has nothing to do with the contemptible anti-Israel campaigning of backbench MPs in parliament.

The opening post very clearly talks about the strength of feeling among sections of the public. That’s why posts on the thread are about protesters’ indifference to war and killing other than Israel’s actions against Hamas (and Hezbollah, and Iran).

People are not marching or agitating against Russia. People are not marching or agitating about any other conflict. Just against Israel. We all know why that is, and that it’s not motivated by concern for Palestinians.