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?

Even Isis is a big plot formed by the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel?

Uh-huh. Sure it is. Kind of getting your world view now.

Out of interest, could you expand more about what you think the role of Jews is in world finance?

Friend of my DFs (used to service our garage equipment) lied about his age and signed up to fight in 1944 ... by the time he'd completed training, the war was over and he was sent to British Palestine. He told us stories of being shot at "by David Ben-Gurions lot" only to read a while later he'd become Prime Minister of Israel. Apparently a lot of his friends had similar experiences over the years of seeing people they'd defended against become leaders. Jomo Kenyatta being another ...

So the UK does have a deep hand in the worlds affairs ????

Yes I know that Gush but why? Why give a mandate over a piece of land and its people to a country 1000s of miles away. Why do you think that happened?

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.

Ignorant nonsense.

Until 1948 the only Jewish-inhabited land in Palestine had been bought from its owners and was legitimately owned by Jews.

The only land the British took from anyone and gave to anyone was the huge area to the east of the river Jordan, which they handed over to the Hashemite sheik in exchange for an alliance. They took it from absentee Turkish and Syrian landlords, and from non-Hashemite residents.

After WW2 the British washed their hands of the matter and just dumped it all back on the United Nations. The UN decided from whom to take land and to whom to give it.

And even the UN did not take land from the Palestinians.

The people living in British Mandate Palestine for the most part did not consider themselves Palestinians. They considered themselves Arabs, Turks, Bedouins,and many other tribal groupings. They considered themselves Muslims, Christians, Druzes and Bahais.

Ironically, the only people who considered themselves Palestinians were the Jews.

The people dispossessed by the establishment of Israel were badly let down by the Arab nations. They have been abused and manipulated by their fellow Arabs ever since.

I do not agree with many things that the state of Israel does. There are human rights abuses going on there. And it is not anti-Semitism to say so.

But to lay the entire blame for the plight of the people who now call themselves Palestinians on one country is fundamentally wrong.

Israel came to the negotiating table many times. But if the other party will not negotiate, or sabotages the negotiations, how can any peaceful solution be found?

If you already know the answers @BarbarianMum why not just say? The Socratic style has its merits but can be quite exhausting.

Excellent post @JellySlice

Yes I know that Gush but why? Why give a mandate over a piece of land and its people to a country 1000s of miles away. Why do you think that happened?

It certainly wasn't to help the Jews. Jews were still looked upon with suspicion at that time. They were 'not one of us'.

But just look at the world map - it's blindingly obvious why Britain accepted the Mandate: greater access to the Gulf of Aden, access to the oil-rich lands further east, access to Arab spheres of influence.

One of the things they considered themselves was owners of the land on which they lived Jelly. Many were farmers, they'd lived there for generations. They weren't on a two week holiday to the region.

It suits certain narritives to portray Palestine as an uninhabited non-country before the creation of Israel. Bit like it suits others to portray the (now) United States as virtually uninhabited and ownerless before colonisation from Europe. But these are just stories of justification.

Of course it wasn't uninhabited. But the properties bought by Jews were generally uninhabited - swampy valleys, dunes by the sea, rocky, deforested hilltops. Often bought sight-unseen, too, from absentee landlords delighted to get money for old rope.

It is true, though, that sometimes those properties included areas that locals assumed were theirs, which lead to ill-feeling.

No of course it wasnt to help the Jewish people Jelly, I dont think that's ever been top of the political agenda in the UK.

The UK took the territory for gain - and when it became problematic they dropped it like a hot potato. I think some in the UK still have a guilty conscience about that, which is partly an answer to the OPs question. Others are acting out of deep anti-Semitism thinly veiled as anti-zionism. I dont think its one or the other.

@BarbarianMum

You mean as opposed to the mess they left in India/Pakistan, Iraq, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Cameroon, etc etc

Funny to feel selectively guilty about one place in which Britain played a relatively minor role in a situation which had already begun developing (Zionism predates the British and the first Zionist Aliya took place at the end of the 19th century under Ottoman rule).

Here's an idea though. If you wish to make reparations, why doesn't the UK offer to resettle all the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Syria? It would certainly be a more practical step in improving the lives of many Palestinians.

There are the friends of Israel in both the Labour and Conservative party no such thing for Palestinians m. The first time ever we have had a pro Palestine leader of the opposition and what a fuss the media make of it.
Why can’t we put Palestinians in Syria? Is that a question for the dim? Aren’t there enough refugees already.
For Arab people Israel is a European/American colony. Why is it deemed controversial to disagree with the imprisonment of the Palestinian people.l?

Maybe because we dont own either Lebanon or Syria and therefore dobt get to just give their land away to a third party? I think it was exactly that sort of thinking that created this mess in the first place.

How would you feel if the British government proposed resettling the Palestinian refugees in Israel? Do you think it's their decision to make?

It's not Britain's place to resettle the Palestinians in another country. The only place Britain has any right to offer is Britain itself.

The only states that can offer to resettle Palestinians in Lebanon/Syria/Jordan etc are those states themselves. But they never have. On the contrary, the Arab nations inflamed the situation from day one.

The only state that can offer to resettle Palestinians in Israel is Israel. This is never going to happen, because more people reject this solution - among both Arabs, Palestinians and Israelis - than support it, and those who reject it are more willing to use violence than those who support it.

This is what is so appalling about Corbyn's attitude: not than he supports the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination, not that he decries the tactics used by Israel, but that he chooses to support those who refuse to acknowledge the rights of others and who use indiscriminate violence to further their aims.

The first time ever we have had a pro Palestine leader of the opposition and what a fuss the media make of it.

The ‘fuss’ made by the media and by many Jewish groups and representatives is not because the Labour left has views on Palestinian rights but because of the way these are being expressed, sometimes in overtly anti-Semitic language and imagery.

Sorry, i wasnt clear. I meant resettle all the palestinian refugees who are in lebanon and syria in the UK (as they're the ones whose condition is worst, suffering from genuine apartheid in lebanon). As reparation to having created the situation.

A mixture of supporting an underdog or oppressed people, and either hatred of Israel and/or anti-semitism.

Kissingtherain, can you give examples?

Corbyn complaining that the bbc says that israel has a right to exist on iranian tv

Imperfect

Read up on it.

Are you denying the problem exists?

“Corbyn complaining that the bbc says that israel has a right to exist on iranian tv”

He said nothing of the sort. He said that the BBC has a pro Israel bias. Which is a perfectly legitimate thing to say, whether you think it’s true or not.

No, his exact words were Israel's right to exist.

I've been gaslighted before but it's there on the video, corbyn's exact words

Imperfect

Look at ariana30's post, blamjng a jewish conspiracy against Corbyn for a perfect example.of anti-Semitism.

He says “I think there is a bias [on the BBC] towards saying that Israel is a democracy in the Middle East, that Israel has a right to exist, that Israel has its security concerns...”

Bias about Israel having a right to exist? What’s the bias? That they should be even handed between those who say it has a right to exist and those who say it should be dissolved as a nation? Really?

Sorry- I didn’t listen properly. But once again- being opposed to Israel surely does not mean being anti Semitic?