Discussing Palestinian Oppression part 2

[Faffandahalf]

Just starting another thread as the other one is full.

Please keep talking about Palestinian occupation and oppression.

Please follow Palestinian support groups like Friends of Al Aqsa and Mohammed el Kurd (an amazing Sheikh Jarrah citizen) on Twitter and Insta to get info from the ground. This will take you to other sources of infor coming out of Palestine.

Please keep Palestine part of the conversation and on social media so it’s not forgotten about.

Supporting Palestine is not anti Semitic
Criticising Israel is not anti Semitic.

As an aside I have not once seen the previous thread in active after page 1.
So MN have let the thread stand after numerous complaints of censorship but still odd that it never came up as active.

Hear hear @anemona. Exactly right.

@anemona

You make some valid points in your thread but have been desperately unfair by claiming thread rife with anti-semitism (which I dispute) but ignoring the racism and Islamophobia.

Several pro-Israelis in this thread have proposed resettling the Gazans in Europe. Encouraging them to move away from their pitiful lives. Do you agree with that?

If I had suggested the same but for Israeli Jews, what would you have said?

And not one pro-Israeli has addressed the issue of the League of Nations mandate for Palestine which was designed by British amd Zionists to create a Jewish homeland in land that was already occupied by indigenous people - the Palestinians. This is colonisation. Until this is acknowledged, then it will be impossible to move forward.

Interesting article by the NY Times Jerusalem correspondent about why this has all kicked off now. The whole article is worth a read...

‘JERUSALEM — Twenty-seven days before the first rocket was fired from Gaza this week, a squad of Israeli police officers entered the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, brushed the Palestinian attendants aside and strode across its vast limestone courtyard. Then they cut the cables to the loudspeakers that broadcast prayers to the faithful from four medieval minarets.

It was the night of April 13, the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It was also Memorial Day in Israel, which honors those who died fighting for the country. The Israeli president was delivering a speech at the Western Wall, a sacred Jewish site that lies below the mosque, and Israeli officials were concerned that the prayers would drown it out.

The incident was confirmed by six mosque officials, three of whom witnessed it; the Israeli police declined to comment. In the outside world, it barely registered.

But in hindsight, the police raid on the mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam, was one of several actions that led, less than a month later, to the sudden resumption of war between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, and the outbreak of civil unrest between Arabs and Jews across Israel itself.‘

We certainly need to ensure it does not overspill to the UK's 2m muslims and 200,000 jews as we saw yesterday with those racist comments form megaphones from Palestinians driving through a Jewish area 4 of whom have now been arrested.

Yes people are entitled to freedom of speech but they must not break English law when over here.

‘ Yes people are entitled to freedom of speech but they must not break English law when over here.’

That wasn’t freedom of Speech, it was hate speech and antisemitism and has been dealt with accordingly .

Absolutely, I agree. It was appalling. It has in my view hugely helped the Israeli cause in my view and that's a good thing (I am on that side as it were). However the line we draw between freedom and constraint is never easy on public streets. I suspect if they did everything the same including the convoy and the flags and the megaphone and the place they did it but shouted - "save Palestinians" for example they might not have broken the law.

Report from the BBC

Local reports suggest Hamas has been offering some kind of ceasefire for several days, only to be rebuffed by Israel, which clearly wants to inflict as much damage as it can on the militants before the fighting is finally brought to a close.
These episodes follow a familiar pattern: Israel presses home its undoubted military advantage until the international outcry over civilian casualties, and a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, demand that the operation end

@anemona Hear hear indeed. This is possibly the best post on the thread.

@JustFedUpOfThis if it will help to move the conversation on, I am happy to acknowledge what you are asking for, that Israel was founded on Palestinian land. So if you choose to start the conversation in 1948, that’s what we’re talking about. However, with these ‘cycle of violence’ situations, justice really does depend in which year you choose to start the conversation doesn’t it? What would your solution be to the question of the Jewish homeland? Do you genuinely believe Zionism is evil and Jews should have just been expected to remain dispersed throughout Europe when most of the families had been murdered there? Or did you have another homeland in mind?

And I wonder also whether you apply similar rules to other settler states? Should white Americans all return to Europe? And white Australians? And South Africans? All of whom were also building their countries on colonised land?

I don’t believe for a second that many of these strikes are justified as ‘military’ targets. Bombing the home of Hamas leaders for example, and killing dozens of civilians, children, instead. Are the Israeli authorities really that dense that they believe those ‘targets’ are going to be sitting in their own homes waiting to be bombed?
It’s nothing but a show of force.

Well where do you think Hamas’s leaders are @Adventureswith? How would you personally track them down? All these people sitting safely in countries whose existence no-one questions are full of great ideas...

@joanneg36

I am happy to acknowledge what you are asking for, that Israel was founded on Palestinian land

Thank you. You are the first pro-Israeli to do so.

And I’m heavily critical of the English / British government and its colonisation. I’m Scottish - the English (and aristocratic Scottish landowners) replaced the indigenous population with sheep in the Highland Clearances. So, so many wrongs and the English/British have never been held to account.

Thanks @JustFedUpOfThis. I am actually not convinced we disagree that much. You keep calling me pro-Israeli, which I am in the sense that I believe Israel has a right to exist. But I also believe that the Palestinians have a right to their own state and to live in peace and with freedom. This is the only possible solution.

I think the only substantive difference in our positions if there is one, is that I believe the starting point of peace and negotiations needs to be Hamas acknowledging Israel’s right to exist. As long as Hamas is firing rockets at Israel, it has the right to defend itself. And god, I would hope there is a way they can do that which is less horrific than what they’re doing right now. But given that I’m a Londoner sleeping safely in my bed and working in an office, I don’t choose to believe that I know more about military operations than the IDF.

I was also (with my examples of America, Australia, South Africa) pointing out that most countries are ‘unjust settler states’ yet the Left of the world has an obsessive focus on just one of those states: Israel. And people need to take a long hard look at the source of that obsession.

‘ Well where do you think Hamas’s leaders are @Adventureswith?’

Not sitting in their own houses that’s for sure. And I’m absolutely positive that one of the most famously sophisticated intelligence forces in the world know that already.
Using the ‘human shield’ argument though, Israel
would be justified in flattening the whole of Gaza, no? Cos they’re probably around there somewhere.

Gaza will reportedly run out of electricity in 2 days or so as the infrastructure has been so badly damaged. That no power to hospitals, to ventilators, to operating theatres in the middle of a conflict were hundreds are being injured every day, in the middle of a pandemic.
Wondering if that will finally slow the Israeli bombardment down.
Surely Netanyahu has exacted his revenge by now?

@Adventureswith So your argument is that the IDF knows exactly where Hamas is hiding but is choosing not to find them and instead kill innocent women and children just for fun? Really?

@joanneg36 no, Gaza is a big, crowded area so I’m not suggesting they do know where Every Hamas individual is, I’m telling you that they know where they aren’t. Like in their own houses.
Or in in a building housing media outlets for example.

‘ You keep calling me pro-Israeli, which I am in the sense that I believe Israel has a right to exist. ’

I’m also pro-Israeli. I absolute believe that Israel has the right to exist.

[quote Adventureswith]@joanneg36 no, Gaza is a big, crowded area so I’m not suggesting they do know where Every Hamas individual is, I’m telling you that they know where they aren’t. Like in their own houses.
Or in in a building housing media outlets for example.[/quote]
Actually if I was a terrorist trying to hide from the Israeli rockets that’s exactly where I would go - a hospital, a press building, a school. Then if they do destroy the building it would at least attract some attention and maybe they won’t because of that?
Not saying they definitely did it, but I can see logic behind it.
Why do you think Israel destroyed the press building otherwise?
I am sure they are destroying their houses just to spite them, which to me unfortunately also makes a lot of sense...

@joanneg36 I apologise if pro-Israeli is wrong phrase.

We are close on agreeing I think, but I think the phrase “right to exist” is problematic as it ignores the fact that Israel was founded on Palestinian land.

But Israelis have a “right to live” peacefully in Israel/Palestine as do the Palestinians. I do not advocate a single citizen of Israel having (or being encouraged) to leave. And I agree that Hamas needs to acknowledge that right to live. I am 100% against their mantra of destroy Israel.

I hope that makes sense?

@JustFedUpOfThis, I assume you are aware that the Scots contributed their fair share to the formation of the British Empire?

Also, I'd like to point out that there were long-settled Jewish communities living in Palestine long before political Zionism came into existence. Yes, there was an Arab majority, but there had been a continuous Jewish presence.

@justfedupofthis - yes, that does make sense, and I get it. I guess what I was trying to say is that pretty much every nation's 'right to exist' is founded on the serious oppression of someone else at some point. So at a certain point, to achieve peace, the only thing to do is accept that all citizens of that country have an equal right to exist there and if need be, carve up the land accordingly. Of course, the specific nature of this dispute means there are certain sites like Jerusalem which are religiously disputed. Which is why peace processes always collapse...

What if they actively want to leave, especially those with children - why do you think they should be forced to stay there - under Hamas and under risk of harm

[quote GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman]@JustFedUpOfThis, I assume you are aware that the Scots contributed their fair share to the formation of the British Empire?

Also, I'd like to point out that there were long-settled Jewish communities living in Palestine long before political Zionism came into existence. Yes, there was an Arab majority, but there had been a continuous Jewish presence.[/quote]
I absolutely agree the Scots had a huge role in Empire building. Glasgow was considered the second city of the Empire before its decline. I’m also aware of our terrible role in slavery in the USA. But before the Union, we were persecuted too. Highlanders were burnt out of their homes and sent to the coast. If you don’t mind I’m going to blame the English (and Scottish aristocracy) for that.

‘ Why do you think Israel destroyed the press building otherwise? ’

Censorship. To try to hamper the reportage coming out of the area. Which seems to be the general consensus in the world press but was my first thought anyway. Cut electric, hamper WiFi and communications, get rid of the offices of many of the media in the area... and on and on.

Also, I'd like to point out that there were long-settled Jewish communities living in Palestine long before political Zionism came into existence. Yes, there was an Arab majority, but there had been a continuous Jewish presence.

Yes. There are many long-settled Indian or Pakistani communities in the UK. Yet I doubt very much that we’d accept it if wholesale migration meant that Indians took over our institutions, took our land and placed us under siege in East London.

I can’t believe that Britain ever thought this would be acceptable.