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?

And just one more point to correct this fact:
"The majority of the Israeli population are of European/North American background."

No, they are not. About half of the Israeli Jewish population is of North African/Middle Eastern descent (although nowadays it's all mixed up anyway). Another 20% of the Israeli population is Arab. So the majority of the Israeli population is not of European origin.

I agree OP. I have known many people in the Left talk about supporting Palestine, who show very little understanding of the history. It is a trendy cause to support.

What did the Arabs do with the “occupied territory” pre 1967? Not form a Palestinian homeland, that’s for sure. They have never given a damn about them, they just use them as a way of attacking Israel.

These two videos are worth watching:

I am older than many posters on here. My parents were Fabian socialists and huge supporters of the new state of Israel. They and their friends really thought that Israel and the Israeli way of life was a beacon for the future. I think for people like them and their children, the disappointment in the path Israel has followed is pretty crushing. The expectations were very high indeed-which made the let down worse. Maybe that’s why the fate of the Palestinians seems to dominate? Nobody expected Saudi Arabia, for example, to be better than they are. Their internal and external politics are not a shock in the way Israel’s was.

tracepants Antisemitic has been used since at least the 1860s to discuss anti-Jewish sentiments and actions in Europe.

To act like it should be applied to sentiments and actions against all Semitic peoples (whether applying it linguistically, ethnically, or culturally) is like saying that something frightening is terrific or that homophobia should only be applied to those extremely frightened of gay people (or sameness or men) due to their root words. It is ridiculous when everyone knows what we mean by antisemitism to try to come up with some pseudo-intellectual reason why they're all wrong and ignores the cultural history of those words which matters just as much if not more.

Also, one can be pro-Israel and antisemitic, just look at the evangelicals in the US who only support Israel because they think if enough Jewish people go there, it will bring the second coming of Jesus. Some of the most antisemitic people one can meet. Many are also pretty anti-Arabic which hits a large portion of the Israeli population - Jewish and non-Jewish - and Palestinians. Just as people can be pro-Israel and antisemitic, people can by pro-Palestine and antisemitic. Personally, I just think it's a clusterfuck all around and alongside issues within Israel and Palestine, many of which already mentioned, some of the surrounding neighbours need to stop using Palestinians as political pawns by refusing to allow any pathway to citizenship for the generations of Palestinian refugees. I wish more on the left and otherwise pushed for that major world refugee issue to be dealt with better.

Not a Corbynite myself but personally think the Palestinians have had a severely raw deal all thanks to the usual British exceptionalism where all colonialism is bad except our own.

Good article on it here.
www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/sunday/brexit-ireland-empire.html

Frankly we created the mess and we have a responsibility to those people we did it to.

People quite rightly condemn anti Semitism while blithely dehumanising Palestinians. Conflating Palestinians with Hezbollah and Hamas is no different to conflating the Irish with the IRA.

BertrandRussell your parents sound quite like my maternal grandparents. If they were still alive, I expect they'd find Jeremy Corbyn a bit too right-wing. But back in the 1940s, they were out fundraising and campaigning for the creation for the state of Israel to be created, and then they were fascinated by of the socialism of the kibbutzim.

The support of other causes isn't as newsworthy owing to the fact you can't tie it into a criticism of the labor party.

I'm neither left nor right but I'd say most of my friends are pretty left wing or left leaning and support for different causes is evident in most of them and most of them view Israel as the complicated situation it is

But yeah keep believing that the whole of the left is obsessed with it, it's what the press are telling you after all so it must be true yeah?

I don't think the whole of the left is obsessed with it. I am on the left myself. But there is a certain kind of left wing person whose focus is on the next trendy left wing issue, usually with little understanding of it.

It’s also important to remember that it is possible to criticise Saudi government policy without fear of accusations of Islamophobia......

Bertrand, yes, that’s right. But the issue with Corbyn’s Labour is the manner of the objections, the language used and the collateral accusations - and collateral associations, as with Iranian interests for example - made by members of the far left of Labour about Jews.

I don't think the Palestinian cause is a 'trend', it's something that NEEDS to be in the news because it is horrific and atrocious. To answer your question OP, when such atrocities happen it takes a while for people to actually see the truth after a while without the 'propaganda' and assess the situation in an educated way. Yes, the Uighur Muslims are being demonised and in a few years someone will take up that cause and same with everything else.

It is probably because the British have a lot to answer for, after WW2, they took Palestinian land and just gave it to the Jewish people. The question is, why specifically Palestinian land? Why not anywhere else in the World? Why not Wales, Scotland, England, Northern Ireland? Because the Jewish people demanded that specific land... The Palestinians actually welcomed them, gave them a home and are now the victims in a disgusting mess caused by others.

They live in an open prison, millions of people in a small section of land who are not allowed passports or to leave the strip. To the PP who said that Israeli bullets do not hit their Palestinian targets, wtf are you talking about? Did you not see the bullets raining down on Palestine a few years ago, the ones who were aimed and murdered little boys on a beach??? Or is that propaganda? It is really quite ironic that people talk of propaganda but do not see the lies fed to them by the West and Israel... Do you really think kids with bombs strapped to them have a chance against an army like Israel funded by America with their own high grade nuclear bombs??? Is it any wonder that other countries have built their own, they do it to protect themselves. If Iran did not have a nuclear bomb, we can all see and guarantee that the West would have destabilized their country by now to then invade... Is this not obvious from what has happened in the surrounding countries? Let's not even mention the mess of what has been done to Iraq and Afghanistan, but hey, what does it matter if they are not American/British lives at stake? Is it not obvious that the West has brainwashed people to such an extent that the lives of those in the 'middle east' mean so little?

With regards to the daily anti semitism BS, I don't understand it? What kind of anti semitism do these people speak of? Is it anti-semitism to speak out against Israeli occupation and war crimes? With every tiny thing spoken out against Israel being called aniti semitic it stops people from speaking out at all which is what they want. It is not anti semitic to speak out against a nation that is murdering people who are being forced out of their homes and imprisoned in a country which belongs to them, the Palestinians... Stop shutting down and criticism with anti semitism and make a stronger argument, it becomes pathetic to watch after a while, especially when some of the MP's are being funded by Israel, it makes it that much more unbelievable...

There is a strong difference between anti semitism and anti zionism, please educate yourselves of the difference and educate yourselves further on the matters of Palestine and Israel. A PP said that Britain's hand was forced in the matters of giving Palestinian land to Jewish people. Nobody is forced, if they were forced, they could ahve given up their own lands. They could have bought anywhere else in the World to settle the Jewish population, but no, they had their eye on someone else's land and decided to take it, much like the Israeli's are doing now and the World just accepted it. We should ALL be supproting the Palestinian cause. This doesn't mean we do not believe in Israel's right to exist, but we also believe in Palestine's right to exist and to their own land. Supporting one cause does not mean that you are against another. Me being pro Palestine, does not make me anti Israel and this the lie that is fed to the public and with everything the Labour party does, Corbyn can't seem to get it right.

The Jewish people want him out because he would be the only prime minister to acknowledge Palestine, thus the hardcore smearing campaign....

I know sod all about Palestine but, I do think it's wierd when local Labour Party groups get obsessed with it.

They'd do better focusing on domestic stuff- leave foreign policy to the PLP.

And the incessant use of holocaust terminology and analogies. This is what bothered the corbynites the most about the IHRA anti semitism definition.

Funny that noone uses holocaust analogies to describe saudi arabia or iran. And no one thinks of attacking buddhist mosques in retaliation for the Rohingya genocide (you know, a real one, with outrageous atrocities).

It is entirely possible to describe human rights abuses in palestine without reference to the holocaust or genocide. Imo, it's done to lessen the crimes of the holocaust against the jews which were pretty unique in history.

@ariana30

Exactly what Palestinian land did the British take and give to the Jews???

The British had a mandate and handed it over to the Un when it got too messy. The un voted for partition which the arabs rejected. They didn't take any Palestinian land and they certainly didn't give it to the Jews.

@Ariana30 The Jewish people want him out because he would be the only prime minister to acknowledge Palestine, thus the hardcore smearing campaign...

FFS. And this is posted from someone saying that they do not see any antisemistism. Apparently it's all just a plot by those scheming Jews {angry]

@gushpanka, where did you get that info? Wikipedia? Hmm, history being rewritten in many ways. OK sure, let's believe your story, they were gifted lands... And what of the land they they stole? You know, the rest of it that the Palestinians lived on?

And why did the British have a mandate exactly Gush? Not like Palestine is part of the UK.

@gushpanka, yes, it is a plot, everything is, do you not see it? Even Isis is a big plot formed by the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel? I truly fail to understand a group who operates under Islam but kills and murders more Muslims than anyone else?!? Which part of this makes sense to you? Where did they appear from, so suddenly, with all that funding?!? Why are people not questioning this?

Mark Thomas has done quite a bit on a few of the issues. I can't recommend his shows highly enough ... especially the double-bill:

www.comedy.co.uk/people/mark_thomas/shop/6117/walking_the_wall_showtime_from_the_frontline/

where he walks the wall the Israelis are building and sets up a comedy school in a refugee camp.

Is it too vom-inducing to say we are at our most human when we laugh together ? Probably .

Question everything... I see you are pro Israel, I'm pro Palestine, we will never see eye to eye. That doesn't meani an anti semitic though or you are Islamophobic?!? But the news will have you believing that...

*I am

The British didn't give any land in Palestine to Jews. That's just a fact. If they did give land, perhaps you can say what land exactly was given and to whom precisely? The displacement of the Palestinians happened during the 1947-48 civil war following (and in the chaos during) British withdrawal.

The British did, however, gift all of trans-Jordan to the Hashemite kingdom to become the modern state of Jordan.

@BarbarianMum

The British were given a mandate by on Palestine by the then League of Nations following WW1 and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire which had ruled until 1917.