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.

This is an interesting thread and some posts ring true to me - like @HauntedBungalow's suggestion that there's a positive feedback loop on both sides - the more strongly generally progressive people identify with Palestine, the more strongly conservative people identify with Israel, and vice versa.
Palestine has been a hot button issue among university students for decades. I was at uni last century and I remember many parties where students who thought of themselves as left wing expressed vocal support for Palestine, and students who thought of themselves as conservative asked questions much like the OP's here. It's spread beyond undergraduates in the last few years.

For the reasons I stated above - because it’s essentially being live-streamed in front of our eyes. If the same was being done for any other conflict we would be shouting about those too, because it’s impossible to ignore, but because of the differences in social media access that’s not happening.

But you knew that already. Nobody who has seen even a fraction of the content coming out of Gaza could be under any illusion as to why people are upset about it. Your whataboutery is just a thinly-veiled attempt to imply that there must be a more malevolent cause, i.e. anti-Semitism - a position so illogical and dehumanising that I am repeatedly stunned at the cognitive dissonance required to hold it.

On the political left, antisemitism.

On the political right, Islamophobia.

Two cheeks of the same srse.

Because it's their land from 1000s years ago but, due to Hitler's politics, the United Nations decided it could be Jewish land and return the land to its original name: Israel. This is in Genesis and Exodus of the Torah (and first 5 books of the Bible) so essentially modern politics has been based on an Iron Age document of faith written, they say, by Moses. 'Israel' was the name given to Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebecca, and father of the 12 tribes of Israel - one of which got stuck in Egypt and they're the Israelites who Moses led to their promised (and neighbouring) land Israel. In 1947 it seemed the ideal place to give to displaced Jews, many of whom migrated there anyway. The issue being, however, that people already lived there. Palestinians in their country Palestine. Called Palestine (this bit I'm not as sure about) since even before the diaspora of Jewish people since the destruction of the Temple in the first century.

And then there's the emergence of Zionism - believing all Jews have the birthright to live in Israel should they choose. It's a small bit of land and essentially it's Jewish based only on that iron age document of faith that some people will argue it isn't true.

Palestinians have really suffered since 1947. It's emotive too.

Both Jews and Muslims are descendants of Abraham. Isaac had a brother Ishmael. Both promised the same inheritance (land) worth fighting for. Except it really isn't to most of the world. Genocide is never justified but with Israel having strong links in the West, possibly to appease consciences from the Holocaust, Israel have the funds to fight for land and Palestinians never have. Hence the rise of a terrorist faction.

Denial. Plain and simple. The number of people who are happily denying that genocide is occurring - ‘it’s all Hanas’ - is pretty frustrating.

There is no apartheid is Israel and this statement can only come from someone who has never been to Israel and does not understand.

20%+ of Israelis are Arabs/Muslims with the exact same rights at Jews and Christians

Every citizen, Jewish or Muslim, is allowed to vote, serve in the army, work in senior government positions etc

A Muslim Arab judge in the Supreme Court has sent to prison a Jewish prime minister and a Jewish president

There are no places in Israel where Israeli Muslims cannot visit. In contrast, there are restrictions on Israeli Jews praying at Al-Aqsa

Please don’t just believe me… look these things up. The information is out there for free.

But to answer the question in the thread - people are suspicious of Jews (age old) so this conflict is interesting to them in a way Sudan etc is not

Many Governments (including ours) were supportive of Israel. Our Government didn’t support Russia invading Ukraine.

The killing in Gaza has been declared a genocide.

There is undoubtedly a bias in what we see on the news, but also we don’t have any influence on civil wars. People can send aid but marching in London isn’t going to have any impact or influence

Here we go again with the faux naive question.

I read an article about Sophie Duchess of Edinburgh visiting DRC to see a team of surgeons repairing the effects of rape . About 30% of the patients are children, some as young as 20 months. The day Sophie was there a 5 year old was being treated for double incontinence. The numbers are quite staggering. A British team of surgeons were there volunteering and saw 25 victims their first day. There have been thousands over the years.

I looked on Mumsnet over the next few days to see a thread about the visit, but tumbleweed. People seem very selective over their outrage. Likewise all the women silenced by the Taliban....a little more news coverage, but not a lot.

It's the amount of coverage. That's not to say what is happening isn't horrific, but it absolutely superseded any other horrific acts happening because of the coverage.

Cobgo, Sudan, DTC etc would also bring up massive amount of emotion and care if they had proper PR.
Which lets be frank, some of it was absolutely funded by Iran. So PR and funds.

Yes, there are far worse examples of war, cruelty, apartheid and dispossession, it always gives me pause for thought. The other conflicts don't seem to be as well publicised and reported? The UK Left seem to have taken it close to their hearts?
Those weekly marches were something else, though.

Yes. I think this is an excellent point. I read about Sophie's visit, and some of the detail made very hard reading.
I've no idea why the crisis in the DRC isn't of concern - or outrage - to many.

Genocide? Humm…

IAGS - the vote was open to all members, genocide ‘expert’ or not. Important to note that anyone can join IAGS as an ‘expert’ for around $30. ‘Experts’ include activists, students, etc. Also important to note, no distinction was made between combatants and non-combatants

UN commission - what to say.. please look up the malignant antisemitism of Francesca Albanese

Or is it just a fact, in the same way as the fact that the Christian right also has undue influence in US politics, billionaires have undue influence in US politics.

Ffs

That's not the OP's question. She's asking about the prominent coverage of this issue over so many global humanitarian tragedies.

Can only speak for self:

The perpetuators of terrible things that happened recently in Yemen, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Congo, Somalia... were not treated as "Our important friends" by USA & UK govts. Were not directly sold arms, did not have their military personnel attending Westpoint or Sandhurst and closely liaising with Uk/USA intelligence agencies.

UK/USA leaders Didn't sit down for convivial meals with the leaders / perpetuators, didn't hold joint press conferences, didn't justify at length the armed conflict as right to defend self, didn't have UK/USA leaders saying "We stand shoulder to shoulder with you"

Reagan called Osama bin Laden a wonderful freedom fighter, but at least (it seems) they never met in person and joked together over fine food.

I have turned off Yemen-Ukraine-Afghan news for years and generally avoid Gaza news too... but of course I can't completely avoid if I have the news on at all, I still learn a lot that does nothing to improve my quality of life. So upsetting.

They did have connections. It's not only Israel which has had any economic or diplomatic ties with the UK. That can't be it.

I think pp have just described it. We are witnessing scenes from this conflict in a way that we aren't with others.

The way I see it, Hamas started a war in the most horrific way. Then they fought that war from directly underneath their own people, putting the safety of civilians, including children in jeopardy.
Then they filmed and live-streamed that war and horror to use as a propaganda machine.

And at any point they could have chosen to end it.

If Hamas had remained, then this would happen over and over again until Isreal was eradicated…which means forever.

People should be marching against the pure evil that is Hamas, who are playing us for fools. Instead, they have empowered Hamas for two years, as has recognising Palestine as a state without conditions that Hamas had to go.

I thank God for the strong leadership from President Trump.

I'd also like to say people highlighting other horrific conflicts are right, there should be more coverage of those. I think the reason people protest Israel though is because we are their supposed allies, were the architects of the conflict in the first place and may have some political influence on their actions.

I mean they're talking about making Blair a viceroy of Gaza.

It’s Jew hatred, the oldest and most pernicious form of racism the world has ever seen.