To wonder why the Corbynite left is so obsessed with Palestine?

[Antigony]

To be clear - I don't agree with everything the Israeli government is doing.

But there are vast numbers of governments around the world who are doing terrible things. There's the Chinese government's treatment of the Uighur Muslims, the Australian government's offshore internment of asylum seekers for years driving some to suicide, the Saudi Arabian government's warmongering and bombing in Yemen, Maduro in Venezuela stopping food aid from reaching his starving people, the Iranian government hanging gay people etc.

Why have so many people on the British left seized on and fetishised this one injustice? Why do they all put Palestinian flags in their twitter bios and jump on every opportunity to criticise Israel, but don't do the same for these other countries?

That's odd, earlier you inferred that my pointing out Israel has openly carried out rocket attacks from helicopters in populated civilian streets as "1930s" propaganda. You also inferred that 100000 british occupying troops was a sign of British support" for Palestine and then that I was of the same conviction as an antisemite for pointing out inconvenient truths. Interesting!

Though I do find it very anoying that you can't criticise Israel without being liable an antisemite though. For goodness sake one is a country the other a religious belief!

It's a PITA tactic used to shut down inconvenient truths.

Many Israeli's actually criticise the Israeli Government's policies on continued expansion of territory, amongst other things.

That's odd, earlier you inferred that my pointing out Israel has openly carried out rocket attacks from helicopters in populated civilian streets as "1930s" propaganda.

No, I said that when people "only" want to criticize Israel they usually trip themselves up by basing their criticism on 1930's anti semitic tropes, you ignoring the geopolitical issues involved and trying to paint it as a black and white issue is boarding on 30's propaganda that the likes that Stormfront push.

You also inferred that 100000 british occupying troops was a sign of British support" for Palestine and then that I was of the same conviction as an antisemite for pointing out inconvenient truths. Interesting!

I think you need to brush up on your geopolitical history instead of trying to build a strawman to try and attack me on.

I will give you a basic hint on the rabbit hole you need to go down:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_insurgency_in_Mandatory_Palestine

Your link underpins my argument. Not that I'd recommend relying upon Wikipedia! It's quite right and proper to condemn state actions that do not stand up to international legal standards. None of these situations is ever black and white, so no, you don't need to state the activities which may have enticed the governing body of that state to use such methods when condemning those actions.

I will also note that you have ignored the theme of the OP and the lefts problem with acceptance of, in your words a terrorist organisation with regards to Israel

twitter.com/socialistworker/status/1100405440901406720

twitter.com/gordonrayner/status/1100416885789618177?s=19

Your link underpins my argument. Not that I'd recommend relying upon Wikipedia! It's quite right and proper to condemn state actions that do not stand up to international legal standards.

It was you who jumped on me, my link shows it's a nuance situation and that British support of palisitians is opposite to the western colonsiation rhetoric that most of the hard left ignore.

None of these situations is ever black and white, so no, you don't need to state the activities which may have enticed the governing body of that state to use such methods when condemning those actions.

You're seriously downplaying the geopolitical stance in all of this, Jews have always been and still are being ethnically cleansed from Arab states, where do they go?

You accept it's not as black and white and yet still try and point out one side

No you are going out of your way to turn any criticism of Israels actions into something darker. Yes some of those actions are similar to those employed by the terrorist organisations that they are fighting. Northern justifies the other.

Are you suggesting twitter as a source of geopolitical history? I thought Wikipedia was tenuous!

"Neither justifies the other" it's my fingers no auto correct to blame!

Because they are antisemites/far left (the two terms are interchangeable). The far left has always been racist as fuck.

*not pro Israel/religious states in general btw

Yes, it’s because they are anti Semitic. It’s not hard to spot, for those not wilfully blind anyway.

There’s thousands of kids being abused so why should we care about this one?

Same logic

No you are going out of your way to turn any criticism of Israels actions into something darker.

You are still trying to stuff that srawman without any knowledge of geopolitics.

Yes some of those actions are similar to those employed by the terrorist organisations that they are fighting. Northern justifies the other.

This is pure IDPOL shit that doesn't warrant an answer

Are you suggesting twitter as a source of geopolitical history? I thought Wikipedia was tenuous!

If you want to highlight what is false in those twitter threads I will concede, so far its the left that has a problem with Hezbollah being a proscribed organisation.

You are trying to attack the man and not the ball here

You bandy the term geopolitics around as though it's a complex term when it really isn't. The intricacies of the geopolitical scene in this and many other arena are incredibly complex and are never fully understood from a distance.
I whole heartedly agree that hezbollah should be a prescribed organisation by he way. I'd just like to protect my right to criticise a country or regime without being labeled as a racist or intolerant of religion.
I'd certainly like to see Jeremy Corbyn and John Mcdonald run out of the party, hopefully with most of the momentum movement too. I do miss a centre-left mainstream party option.

You bandy the term geopolitics around as though it's a complex term when it really isn't

Oh but it is, you have glossed over the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab states, ignored the theme of OP in regards to the inherent problem with the left and not cited a rebuttal to the Twitter threads I have linked.

You are free to keep digging the hole though and pretend this is a moral stance argument

Quite simple really. Since the late 60s Palestinian supporters appealed to and set up organisations in left wing groups and universities in the west. Its a very active area. If you wanted to get involved in Tibet for example, there are much less groups to get involved with.

Yep, the obsession of corbynistas/ momentum with Palestine is bizarre and rooted in anti semitism. And the ignorance of some very opinionated posters on how Israel even came into existence is shocking.
No, obviously criticising Israel, especially under its current government is fine, certainly plenty of stuff going on i don't agree with. But in the list of conflicts/humanitarian disasters it's pretty low down (sadly it's a long list). Yemen is a humanitarian nightmare, and theres Iraq, syria, Lybia, Myanmar, drc, car, eritrea, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Cameroon, Chad...so why oh why the obsession with Palestine? Answer: ??? Really only one conclusion...
It's strange that my local Buddhist temple has no security despite Myanmar committing genocide among the Rohingya. And my local Russian orthodox church has no sscurity despite all the shit Russia has done in syria and Chechnya. But my local synagogue? Armed soldiers outside 24/7. Why? Because Palestine.

The armed guards outside synagogues came about because of far right nutcases. and Islamists. Where are all these left wingers shooting up synagogues?

Its not rooted in anti semitism. Its 'rooted' in the behaviour of Israels's government.

And how do you deal with Iraq, Syria, Libya and the rest? they're an incomprehnsible mess with 100 different sides and rampant hidden corruption. With Israel, a supposedly open, western style democratic government is acting very badly and trying to point to their enemy who we all epect mcuh less from as their justifiation- its a much more clear problem that can be targeted, like South Africa was.

Justanother
You are trying to defend the indefensible, the actions of other countries or organisations does not justify the actions of Israel. A state actor must operate with restraint and within the law regardless of the threats it faces, failure to do this deserves criticism. That does not make anyone antisemitic. I'm not suggesting that Hezbollah should not be a prescribed organisation, I'm pointing out the importance of being able to criticise a country, state or organisation without being labeled an extremist.

It’s because the wicked Americans backed Israel while the glorious utopia of the USSR aligned with Syria. But it was also a convenient outlet for the far left’s rampant anti-semitism.

The far left is not populated by nice people, any more than the far right is.

There was one rally i remember where all these idiot hard left had signs saying 'we are all hezbollah'. The israel hatred was so intense they were prepared to identify with a homophobe misogynistic terrorist organization.

The one sided lens at which the complex israel palestine problem is viewed is also part of the problem. The Palestinians have a role too and are not some kind of angels who can do no wrong.

I have tried to understand this and most of what I’ve read says that it’s the other way round, that the left’s anti-sémitisme is a result of the Israeli treatment of Palestine. But from what I can understand several people on this thread are saying the opposite: that the left is already anti-Semitic and thus it supports Palestine against Jewish / Israeli occupation.

So where does the anti-sémitism come from then? Why have the Jews been so universally hated and expelled? I visited the Holocaust floor at the Imperial War Museum recently: all that hate, seemingly justified by all the awful ways that Jewish people live / worship / behave. But why then? And why not any other religious group? (I’m aware that ethnic cleansing has been practiced against huge numbers of people, based on religion / race / tribe / culture - but these seem to be ‘local’ events compared to the global nature of anti sémitisme).

There are a few schools of thought for explaining the persistence of anti semitism.

One (that I've heard to my face) is that there is something wrong with Jews as a people and it's their own fault everyone hates them.

The other is that as an insular, non assimilating and successful minority through out the world (at least europe and the middle east and later other countries) they have always been a convenient scapegoat, living at the mercy of whatever ruler. Hence the need for the jewish people to have a state of their own in their historic homeland.

No one is saying Israel are angels, but not many countries would be if they:

• were founded after a genocide;
• were attacked immediately upon being founded by their neighbours, who continued to attack them many times over the years since;
• are subject to rocket fire repeatedly;
• have other countries eg Iran say many times they want to exterminate them.

Hamas ruthlessly uses civilians as human shields and some reporters still fall for it, claiming that all civilian casualties are Israel’s fault. (Hamas is also brutally homophobic but gets a free pass from the left for some reason on this.)

Fact: the Palestinian population has increased substantially since 1948, while in the same time period Jews have been “cleansed” across the Middle East and are found almost nowhere now apart from Israel. So where is the Apartheid?

In answer to the OP, Israel is seen by Corbynites as a Western country, and is thus deemed responsible for ills whereas non Western countries don’t interest them except as permanent victims.

Consider Fiji - former British colony. Apartheid was introduced there in 1987, and the ethnic Indian population subject to terrible abuse thereafter. Anyone here care?