Why does Palestine bring out such strong feelings?

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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.

Tbf, Hezbollah launched at them first, Hamas did, well the obvious, Houthis fired at them first, Syria had Hezbollah there (don’t think the Syrians like them either, they were helping assad barrel bomb civilians). Bombing Qatar is probably a big part of why this ceasefire happened tbh. Don’t think they bombed Tunisia, I do think an idiot on a flotilla set fire to their own boat with a flare and then tried to claim the Israelis did it.

Hamas are executing people in the streets, I was surprised to see pro pals supporting this on twitter. No due process, no trial, just dragging people out of their houses and executing them. All you have to say about anyone is that they are an Israeli collaborator. It’s disgusting. I feel sorry for Palestinians, I expected some sort of civil war but they moved fast and will reassert control of the strip.

Because it’s the current trendy thing to march about. Previously was extinction rebellion. Interestingly a lot of people high up organising the weekly Palestinian marches were previously involved in the climate protests. They’ve moved from one issue to another. I suspect they’ll go back to climate stuff now until the next trendy thing comes along.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s been horrific and an out of proportion genocide but like the OP says there hasn’t been the same protests for other sustained atrocities.

But no one is saying it isn’t wrong. Of course it’s absolutely abhorrent.

the point op is making is that literally all of those things have happened in other global conflicts in recent years and it hasn’t hit our collective psyche in anywhere near the same way.
i do think that’s interesting and worthy of discussion (while still obviously condemning the killing)

This- no Jews, no news.

Yep, every Friday the hand wringers assemble in my local town centre banging their pots and pans and waving their Palestinian flags. And I can confirm they haven’t done this even once for Ukraine. And there was no outrage from any of them on the local Facebook page about the atrocities that happened on October 7th 2023.

Yes, Hamas’ propaganda has been brilliant…

🙄🙄🙄

The very same Hamas that are now executing Palestinian citizens. I wonder if we will see any outrage from the left about that? I won’t hold my breath…

Yup

Video of these killings is widely available online, including in established media.

It’s absolutely incredible that the ‘pro-Pals’ have nothing to say about this, no remorse for their support of this gangster death cult, no willingness to reconsider.

Aggressive, disruptive marches and mob protests in support of these murderous antisemitic thugs is what everyone’s had to put up with for two years (and before, but the anti-Israel street protests are now at an all time high).

I despair at the stupidity and bigotry of so many on the left, and other antisemites, in the UK.

So the logic is “Hamas used civilians as shields, therefore civilians don’t matter”? 🥴 That’s not how international law works- or basic decency, for that matter. Even in war, you’re not allowed to starve and bomb children because the enemy hides nearby.

And “hopefully Hamas will lose power” doesn’t justify a famine. Let’s see how that argument stands up in The Hague.

@Wedonttalkaboutboris by electing to use them as human shields, it was Hamas who decided civilians didn’t matter.

You’ve somehow written an entire paragraph about Hezbollah and flotillas and still managed to skip straight past toddlers being shot in the head.

That level of deflection really says it all.

Ah yes, the eternal “human shields” excuse- must be why unarmed kids playing or families in tents got hit by drones too?

I keep seeing this assumption that anyone criticising Israel must support Hamas. It’s lazy and untrue. You can condemn both- and plenty of us do.

I think from now on "pro Palestinian" marches are going to very clearly be pro Hamas marches.

Anyone on marches this weekend is supporting Hamas dragging Palestinians into the streets and summarily executing them.

It's going to be very interesting to see just how many people will be out in support of Hamas.

Oh, OK. You don’t protest then, chanting “From the river to the sea…” or “Yemen, Yemen, make us proud…”?

You just wave polite and even-handed placards saying things like “I oppose the actions of the present Israeli government, but I respect Israel’s maintenance of its right to exist as the sole Jewish homeland, and I oppose the Gaza action while absolutely opposing Hamas, Hezbollah and their Iranian puppet masters”.

Is that right?

No. I just wave placards saying ‘stop murdering children’ and ‘stop shooting babies in the head’.

You could happily join pro-Israel, anti-Hamas-terrorist demos with those placards. Good work: very adaptable.

Israel can't control what Hamas do with their own population during a war unfortunately. That's how war usually works.

Shows what you know! 🤣.🤣

There are parameters of how countries engage with each other during a war. But be reasonable. If a country (Gaza) attacks another country and takes hostages, while Israel should act within international law there is no law that says that civilians cannot be killed or that their lives are of utmost paramount importance in all circumstances. Otherwise all hostile forces would use civilians automatically as shields.

Unfortunately the Palestinian people are the victims of their own government's actions.

Except the claim that Hamas has killed 20,000 children or used them as human shields is not supported by statistics.

The majority of child fatalities in Gaza have been attributed to Israeli military actions.

Sadly because Hamas wouldn't allow them to shelter in the tunnels. It's terrible.