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.

DeepThinkingGirl
No no no. First, look that child in the eye. And declare him as a human being with rights. And that it needs to be protected.

I declare him a human being with rights and he needs to be protected

I also declare this child from Hebron (2002), dressed in an imitation suicide bomber outfit, a human being with rights and who needed to be protected. The family claimed this photo was a 'joke'. Excuse me if I'm not laughing my head off and that didn't get the 'joke'

Apparently we’re meant to laugh at black humour jokes such as these Flaxmeadow, just as I was meant to see the humorous side of the joke made by the IDF soldier about raping Palestinian women 🤷‍♀️

They’re never funny, are they?

@GoingOnABarHunt

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, Palestinians have been wronged, Israelis have been wronged

There aren’t two equal sides to this, the State of Israel has oppressed Palestinians for decades and continues to do so by carrying out ethnic cleansing and genocide. Before progress can be made, the Israeli state needs to be held accountable for the suffering of millions.

If you want that to happen, I think you also need to be realistic and realise that no Israeli government is likely to make peace with Hamas, on account of that little problem of Hamas' founding charter stating it aims at the global genocide of all Jews.

I'd be interested in your views on this, and on Hamas, given their history of murdering Palestinian political opponents and gay people, for example, as well as Israeli civilians.

Do you support Hamas, or would you imagine a change in leadership is required there too?

@GoingOnABarHunt

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, Palestinians have been wronged, Israelis have been wronged

There aren’t two equal sides to this, the State of Israel has oppressed Palestinians for decades and continues to do so by carrying out ethnic cleansing and genocide. Before progress can be made, the Israeli state needs to be held accountable for the suffering of millions.

Then there will probably be no solution and more will die.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation commission looked at victims from all sides of the conflict no side was exempt from the Commission. ANC members could be called as could the police. There was a deliberate attempt to avoid victors justice.

Individual’s can be found culpable as with Radovan Karadzic but countries have to move on.

Excuse typos victor’s and Individuals

Do you support Hamas, or would you imagine a change in leadership is required there too?

I think your well aware that no one here supports Hamas. Your just baiting now.

You should leave the thread if you can’t support it instead of turning it in to a bun fight. These people do need help regardless if you dont think they do.

Rwandan reparations have not been paid. It’s pretty much in name only. My friend, on visits home, will run into those involved in the genocide ( she lost most of her close family).They were her neighbours. People have made an active choice to co exist peacefully, not because they have forgotten, but because other options are worse.
Some here seem almost like agitators, using this conflict as a cipher for their own anti Semitic, Islamaphobic, Marxist etc. agendas.

[quote joanneg36]@Menoismymate I agree it's very difficult to feel optimistic about the prospects for a two-state solution given where both sides are at right now, and the leaders they have.

But the problem with simply going 'a federation/one state solution is the only option' is that Israelis (and the rest of the world's Jews) can get a bit funny about it, strangely, what with the fact that it calls for the destruction of their existing state.

Even if we all accept, as I think most on this thread do, that injustices have been perpetrated against the Palestinians by successive Israeli governments, you have to stop and ask yourself why Israel is the only - literally the only - country in the world, whose very existence is questioned when they do a bad thing. I have literally never heard progressive voices calling for the destruction of any other state, even states that have committed an assortment of horrific crimes against humanity.

Why do you think that is?[/quote]
I haven’t seen any progressives or moderates calling for the destruction of Israel. But in answer to your question, the difference is the way this state came about, with ethnic cleansing at the very heart of its birth. Because another state had to literally be destroyed in order for it to exist. Why do Palestinians have to live in refugee camps in order for Israel to exist?

To my mind extensive reparations would be fair but it’s not going to happen. But there are other solutions, and Israel and the US are no where near neither practically or in ideology. The onus is on Israel to come forward with the beginnings of peace, not a shattered and displaced people with no country or govt.

Hamas would fall into irrelevance if the Israeli government treated Palestinians fairly like human beings instead of what looks very like attempted genocide.

As far as I am aware the Israeli government has no stated aim to destroy Palestine but their actions would lead any outside observer to think they do.

Actions speak louder than words.

The vast majority of people will only cling to terrorist groups when they feel there is no other option. Hamas's support would disappear overnight if the Palestine people could live in peace alongside their Israeli neighbours.

For as long as the Israeli government continues its oppression of the Palestine people Hamas will be around and no amount of destruction will stop that. In fact I believe it is having the opposite effect as it lends Hamas a level of legitimacy it does not deserve.

While Hamas seeks the destruction of Israel I do not believe ordinary Palestinians do.

No stated aim to destroy Palestine

@mowglika

No stated aim to destroy Palestine

That’s a really sobering picture.

@mowglika do you genuinely believe that Israel is the only state that displaced and murdered people to found a state? Are you familiar with the USA, for example?

@anemona you have absolutely brilliant agruments, but I'm afraid you are fighting windmills. The majority of these people do not want to admit that in order to progress there needs to be a compromise. I don't even think they are necessarily antisemites, they are just heavily brainwashed. One thing Hamas knows how to do is to is propaganda. And that's unfortunately where they are winning every single time.

And suggesting a ‘one state solution’ to the Israel/Palestine problem, given that the Palestinians understandably want their own state too, does mean the end of Israel.

Yet again: the destruction of Israel is a stated aim of Hamas.

Calling for the destruction of just this one state that was founded on injustice but no others, is anti-Semitic. I’m not going to stop pointing it out.

Where do you think the UK’s population originally came from? What do you think the British Empire did all over the world? Why are you so obsessed with just Israel?

@joanneg36 they are obsessed because they don't like Jews, that's why. They can't say it out loud, because we live in a civilised country. But they hear constant propaganda that Jews are rich, powerful, greedy, bla bla bla, and they don't like that. Add all this propaganda that comes from selective muslims who hates Jews - and here is the result. Let's not sugarcoat it - there are lots and lots of muslims who don't like Jews just because they don't like Jews.

@Frazzledfranny

Do you support Hamas, or would you imagine a change in leadership is required there too?

I think your well aware that no one here supports Hamas. Your just baiting now.

You should leave the thread if you can’t support it instead of turning it in to a bun fight. These people do need help regardless if you dont think they do.

Really not etiquette to tell others to leave threads.

This is a complicated conversation with many viewpoints and not for any of us to say what is or isn't valid.

@joanneg36

I do no think it would be the end of Israel at all.

Im trying to think why the Israeli- Palestinian issue is one that inflames many people and happy to be corrected but could it because it is in recent history one that we are still living- one that is echoing SA apartheid?

Could it be because the US and the UK were involved, to strategise in the Middle East?
Could it be because the Israeli govt gets lots of funding by the US so the balance of power skews against neighbouring countries? therefore stoking flames of injustice?

This next point I'm not sure about at all but could it be as simple as a race thing- not Jews vs Arabs, but White, particularly western white vs Arabs?

Happy to be corrected

@joanneg36

What does that have to do with Israel Palestine specifically? Why is ok just because it’s happened before? And are native Americans second class citizens in the US? Would it be ok if they were?

Address the here and now. Just because we are discussing Israel and Palestine now doesn’t mean we are unaware or ignorant to oppression or persecution elsewhere. I suppose you’d be happy if we just tootled off to other threads and never mentioned Israel again.

You have a choice to either be on the side of justice or the side of deflection and propaganda. So many Israelis, Jews speak out against what the Israeli govt and those that support them are doing. So many. I salute them for being brave enough to stand on the side of justice and humanity and not hiding behind their religion or nationality.

And btw Israel as it stands is a fundamentally racist state and it needs to change from its current form. Any Jewish person could walk in tomorrow and claim all the rights of that land but the people living on it for generations cannot. Pps on this thread have talked about supporting Israel as a lone democracy. I find the double standards very hard to swallow.

@Acidburn Yep, it’s a sad conclusion but unavoidable. The only reason I’m remaining on this thread really is because I do believe the majority of posters here are motivated by sympathy for the Palestinians and justice. And I think it’s important to keep explaining why holding Israel to unique and different standards is anti-Semitic.

The recent Labour leadership failed to understand this point and as a result have rendered the party toxic and unelectable for generations to come. If you’re a leftie, as I am, this is a very sad state of affairs.

Okay @mowglika please take note because I am going to answer all of your questions even though you haven't answered mine:

I am aware of all the injustices against the Palestinians and I have spoken out about them - on this thread, in real life, in political conversations, all the time. You don't know me, so you'll just have to take my word for it on the latter points.

I am not saying that you are unaware of other injustices, I am saying that you are not calling for any other countries to cease to exist, just because they were also founded on historic injustices. Am I incorrect here? If I'm not, which other countries do you believe should cease to exist because they have committed injustices.

And no, native Americans are not living under apartheid, but the idea that they have always enjoyed the same rights and privileges throughout history as white settlers, shows an incredible lack of knowledge of that particular situation.

The point I am making is: once people live in a country and have done so for generations, they have rights. The Palestinians have the right to leave in peace and freedom. So do the Israelis. The only possible means of achieving this is a two-state solution. Do you agree? If you don't agree, then I would ask you - again - to explain why you believe Israel should cease to exist.

I do agree that anti-Semitism underpins alot of the criticism of Israel but if you want to bring it to that level then the people they're in a popularity contest with are Muslims, who the majority of the world from East to West have been shitting on for the last few decades so I don't think it's quite that simple

I agree @chanjer - there is an upsetting amount of Islamophobia about in the world and just as Jews see a backlash when things kick off in Israel, Muslims do too in a different way.

The difference is that it is not considered acceptable amongst 'good-thinking people' of the left/mumsnet to be an Islamophobe (thankfully) but it is still considered absolutely fine it seems to say that Israel shouldn't exist and Jews on this thread are possibly in the pay of Israeli government.

It is a socially acceptable form of prejudice amongst large sections of the left and that's exactly how the Corbyn disaster happened.

Then issue the US has is that they are so hellbent on revenge themselves in their own interests that everyone knows they would have gone nuclear on any country throwing rockets at the US, regardless of how many did or didn’t actually land.
So it makes them hypocrites to call out Israel for the same show of military might.
That’s why other countries need to step up pressure for a ceasefire. The US’s half hearted, far too slow response is pathetic.

You've slightly made an argument against your own position there @menoismymate. Literally any country in the world that had rockets being fired by terrorists at their civilian population would be hellbent on revenge... obviously.

Of course I don’t support Hamas, but I cannot stand when the Israeli State is held in higher regard whilst carrying out state terrorism and genocide.

I don’t think people are obsessed with Israel because it’s the Jewish State, the world is watching a genocide in real time and people around the globe are quite rightly up in arms about it. Social media has given a view like never before, not propaganda videos, but live links to locations in Israel and Gaza. Yesterday people in Tel Aviv were broadcasting going for brunch whilst people in Gaza were broadcasting videos of total destruction and lifeless bodies at their feet. Everyone had a vague idea of how unequal things were, but the stark difference has really shocked a lot of people, especially those who relied on the MSM for information. Would you prefer it if the world ignored the human rights violations? Turned a blind eye to the Israeli state breaking numerous international laws? Stayed quiet about the ethnic cleansing?

Palestinian people are the victims here.