You just cannot talk about Palestine on this forum

[Faffandahalf]

Why has the last thread been taken down with a ‘goady op’ message?
What’s so goady about asking why we can’t criticise the actions of Israel?
Don’t even give a shit this is a TAAT and will get zapped.

Palestine exists. Ethnic cleansing is happening. And every single thread gets taken down.

Only one person on that thread shouted anti semitism. Every one else was mostly in agreement about what is happening and it still gets zapped.

I’ll once again direct people to friends of al Aqsa on Instagram and Twitter in the hopes people see this and would like some real information.

Israel is an occupying oppressor committing genocide and the Palestinians are an oppressed people. There is no comparison in the force power and might of these two groups esp when one has the backing and funding of the US.

Seriously pissed at MN for refusing to allow truths to be told about the situation

JustFedUp
Egypt did effectively expel Jews and others in the 1950’s. They were “encouraged” to gift their property to the state and leave. However it was badged, it was an expulsion. I worked with someone who had been forced out of Egypt as a child - they were Sephardic Jews and had been allowed to leave with a suitcase, everything else - their family business etc - had gone to the state.

There is fault on both sides. DH is North African and I have visited many times for decades. The whole region is a mess with governments propping themselves up by exploiting others. I include Israel in that criticism along with the Arab countries.

And suggesting what is happening in Israel is anything like the NI troubles is daft. NI wasn’t dealing with ethnic cleansing.

@ConfusedAdultFemale, as a proud English woman, read up some history before making stupid comments.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation_of_Ulster

There is a long history there, as there is also in the middle east.

@Greenmarmalade

I care about the Uighur people in China. It’s horrifying.

Also care about Palestinians.
Also care about Israeli people who want to live in peace but can’t because Palestinians are being abused and oppressed.

This. And I talk about all of it. It is not anti-semitic to criticise the government of Israel. Government is not the same as the Jewish religion. The people crying foul when people criticise the Israeli government are being disingenuous and also displaying blatant Islamophobia.

No-one should be drawing legal borders on the basis of a thousands-of-years-old holy book, it's ludicrous.

@IShouldProbablyHooverMore

I apologise unreservedly as I can see it was someone else who made the original comment. I stand by my sentiment, but it is not directed at you!

And yes Arabic countries have expelled Jews, but nothing like on the level that Palestinians were expelled from Palestine. And further, when the Jews were expelled, they were not the ones running these countries. That is absolutely no justification for it whatsoever, but it would have been quite a different scenario if the Jewish population were the majority in say Egypt and with the help of a superpower, the Jews were expelled and a minority race implanted. As I say, ethnically based expulsions are abhorrent, but it is an entirely new level to expel or displace or colonise the incumbent vast majority population.

[quote WhyDontWe]@ConfusedAdultFemale, as a proud English woman, read up some history before making stupid comments.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation_of_Ulster

There is a long history there, as there is also in the middle east.[/quote]
Exactly. If you want to see the long term legacy of settlement and religious and political conflict (and what it takes from both sides to resolve it) NI is a good place to look.

[quote Landofthefree]@Quincie there were also something like 800,000 displaced Jews who were expelled from surrounding Arab countries when Israel was created. There are almost no Jewish people in Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Morocco etc, even though they had been in established communities for centuries before. Many of those people went to Israel because they had no other choice.

The history can be compared to when India became independent and Pakistan was created, which also led to many people being displaced and dying.

I feel so sorry for the ordinary Israelis and Palestinians caught up in a war that is unlikely to have a peaceful solution in the near future. With the current leaders in Gaza and Israel (Hamas and Likud) nothing is going to change while extremists are in charge.[/quote]
Liar liar, pants on fire!

The Jewish exodus was NOT because they were expelled for the most part. However, it's true that some were, and that was also an atrocity/ethnic cleansing which should be roundly condemned by all.

It's just disingenuous to suggest it was 800,000.

It's really common for Zionists to claim the exodus was due only to push factors (anti-semitism, persecution, political instability) and deny the pull factors (fulfill Zionist yearnings, better economic status, desire for a more secure home).

There is definitely a lot of antisemitism in the Middle East, but Israel is no whitened sepulchre, going about stealing people's land and expelling 700,000 Palestinians in the 1948 war.

Does anyone have a link for how we can write to our MPs?

Last night the targeting of an entire civilian building was mortifying

@DeepThinkingGirl

Does anyone have a link for how we can write to our MPs?

www.foa.org.uk/campaign/save-sheikh-jarrah/

@DeepThinkingGirl

scroll to the bottom of the page.

www.foa.org.uk/campaign/save-sheikh-jarrah/

Cross post, I’m ridiculously slow!

Thanks both. Apparently there’s a March from Marble Arch to the Israeli embassy, Saturday 12pm.

Also the Jews were the victims of the war - not the perpetrator

This statement, tragically, can be applied to people across the world of so many people. The whole British Empire was built on invading other peoples spaces and claiming the land as their own, resettling the areas and changing the culture. Not sure you can blame First Nation or Aboriginal people in the USA, Canada, Australia as being anything other than victims not perpetrators. What about India, Africa and hosts of other areas across the globe who saw their populations become 'victims' not perpetrators.

It really is not enough reason to give a 'God' given right to people to claim land as 'theirs' or to inflict the same cruelty on others, generations later, as was done to them. Children of today cannot keep paying for the cruelty, injustice, or sins of their ancestors.

The Israeli government is displaying a gross lack of humanity, pushing Palestinians into ghettos, denying them their humanitarian rights and seems hell bent on eradicating a people they do not want to be there.

Sounds familiar doesn't it?

@ConfusedAdultFemale 'And suggesting what is happening in Israel is anything like the NI troubles is daft. NI wasn’t dealing with ethnic cleansing.'

The conflicts are actually SO similar that in school in NI for GSCEs we studied the Arab/Israeli Conflict to help us understand the Troubles, and to help us see that there are 2 sides. We did this BEFORE we studied Irish history ( this was during the Troubles) to try to prevent us from becoming raging nationalists as the British government had a long history of discrimination against the Irish, and then the catholics in NI, which led to the Civil rights movement and then the troubles,
Sound familiar?

Years ago I looked after a friend's mum when she (the friend) was in hospital. The woman had severe night terrors every night and couldn't be left. She had severe PTSD and remembered every detail of the house she left, down to the food that was on the stove cooking when they were removed. She remembers seeing the curtains flapping on the washing line a little later, her curtains that she made, washed and hung out by the settler as if she had never existed. I will never forget it. I am not going to even bother speaking about Israel or Jewish people or rights and wrongs on here, my opinion is private. But I would say that I have seen the terribly cruel way that the settlement was executed and still think of that old lady often. I live in Qatar where plaestinians have free sanctuary so I work with quite a lot of Palestinians. Of course I have never been to Israel and obviously would not go so I cannot say how nice or nasty their culture is. But I can tell you how warm and kind all the Palestinian homes I have been into are, how little they have but how much they share. I hope the world just stops turning to be honest, it's in too too much trouble.

I'd like to add that many of the debates I have been having about this with others fail to mention that there are many Christian Palestinians, who vehemently oppose the Israeli govt- it is easy to cop out and call all the opposers muslims- it is simply not true. Western media needs to make room for that, especially in the USA where I doubt they have a clue of the demographics of the region. They may know it is holy for Christians, but do not show that they understand that there are Christian Palestinians who hate what is going on and are being pushed out of their homes too.

This is Apartheid and so long as the average Palestinian, Christian or Muslim, is not given nor will be treated as an equal to an Israeli/Israeli Jew there will be no peace.

A very good friend of mine, British with an Israeli father, didn't speak to me for almost a year after I told her I wouldn't go on holiday with her to Tel Aviv because I didn't want to support the Israeli economy in any way. That I considered the situation to be apartheid.
Now we agree to disagree but to her, and her family, ALL Palestinians are terrorists and the Jewish people have a god given right to their homeland and the conflict will only be resolved when the Palestinians leave for 'arab' countries.
They honestly think this is the only solution, and that Israeli should pay for the Palestinians to all leave.

@grantoderek

My great grandmother suffered from dementia and for the last couple of years of her life she would lash out at my male cousins fearing they were Israeli soldiers. She was so triggered that anytime they would try and help her, hold her hand or support her she would freak out and yell "where are you taking me?!", "what are you going to do to me?". She would wake up at night shrieking asking for her little boy (my grandad) worried that they had taken him. We would sometimes sit on the balcony/front porch and when she would see guests she doesn't recognise she would swear at them and tell us to go inside.
She sometimes would panic when we planned to go out and would refuse to come with us and start yelling "I'm not going anywhere, this is my home, where is he?(my grandad) I'm not leaving him! My God please please find him!"
The trauma that she endured and had suppressed all came to surface in her later years when she was reliving her home being taken by settlers in Hebron.

I think British ( mainland) schools are long overdue a history curriculum overhaul. Instead of the Great Fire of London and Henry and all his wives, children really need to be taught about British colonial history properly... Irish self rule, India/Pakistan, South Africa & the prison camps, Palestine... and on and on.

One thing we can do, is to boycott Israeli goods - as we did those of another apartheid state South Africa.

Both 'sides' come out badly IMO. I think lots of people see that intervention by other countries and agreements don't work. The who kills the most argument doesn't work - neither side come out well and meanwhile innocents continue to die.

The Jews have been in the land area for thousands of years. It is their religious holy land. They are financially strong and supported by lots of countries. Jewish people have suffered massively. They still suffer. They are surrounded by other Arab countries mainly following Islam.

Palestine wasn't even a country a few hundred years ago and only recognized officially as the State of Palestine in recent times (claiming the West Bank and Gaza Strip). The area is made up of settlers and not indigenous peoples. Palestine has a population of 5,051,953 as of February 2020. Now Hamas regularly fire rockets into Israel and then when Israel fire back use children as shields. It is noted that "Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they had launched more than 300 rockets into Israel" ... This led to the most deadly night of violence since 2014.....

I think the 'peace deals' or any talks that result in any agreement between the 2 sides are ended quite quickly by terrorist activity. The reason more Israelis are not killed is that they have a fantastic defence system to counteract lots of the rockets - people still die though. More Palestinians die overall.

I cannot support Jihad or terrorism and I condone the killing of innocents so what is the solution? Another peace talk or agreement... which Jihadi will not stick to?

So what is the solution?

@IconUcon
I agree- they seem to in other countries. It is however, opening Pandora's box, and if the last few years tells us anything, people do not like the truth or feel v uncomfortable when faced with it.

I think deep down, most people here in the UK would agree that the situation is ridiculous, and that the force used by the Israeli govt is and has been disproportionate for some time. We can't freely talk about it, it is a huge elephant in the room, a sweep it under the rug if we look away it'll go away type of thing, or we may feel we can't really talk without being banned- like we have all signed an NDA without realising it.

The media only starts reporting once Hamas does something in reaction, but they fail to report on what happened prior to any attack.

I think it telling that despite the international outcry now and consistent condemnation of Israeli policies towards the Palestinian people by Humanitarian bodies and charities there are still posters in here defending Israel. But them I suppose there were plenty of people who supported the SA regime during Apartheid too as SA 'protecting' itself against terrorism.