Hate speech in The Times today - Melanie Phillips

[HiggleDyPigGeldy]

In The Times today, Melanie Phillips page 26 article: “a small Jewish child, alone and bewildered, being tormented on a Gaza street by Palestinian children who are all taught to hate and murder Jews”

The thought of this poor child being tormented is beyond heartbreaking to me as a mother, and as a Jew.

BUT, how can it he acceptable for a major newspaper to print that Palestinian children are all taught to hate and murder Jews?
It’s not true for one (my son’s closest friend is a little Palestinian boy who is lovely, and his family, who are from Gaza and still have relatives there, are horrified by the violence that unfolded this week. We regularly spend time together and actually have a lot in common.)

By blanket painting all Palestinians, even children, as evil terrorists, the writer is inciting hatred. Which is exactly the opposite of what is needed now to stop the bloodshed on both sides!

AIBU to think that the media are inciting hatr

Enough of this.

Didn’t read it but sounds a highly biased, inflammatory and irresponsible thing to print in a major national newspaper. Ffs.

There are numerous faults, on both sides, with the politicians involved.

Civilians are the innocents, caught in the middle, as ever.

Melanie Phillips has never been unbiased.🙄

It doesn't sound like good reporting, no. As if anyone can say what all children are taught. There would be chaos if it was said that Catholic children in Northern Ireland are taught to hate Protestants.

But that poor child.

as a mother

Sorry you lost me there. Even childfree people like myself have the same feelings you know!

Expecting a reasonable argument on any subject from Melanie Philips is unreasonable in itself. The situation between Israel and Palestine can't and won't be resolved without considerable concessions on both sides which will be a long time coming. This latest war is awful for everyone involved and no good can come of it for anyone. Sympathy to all affected.

Honestly, it’s Melanie Phillips. Not sure what else you’d expect. I can’t listen to her on Moral Maze anymore. An unpleasant person with many unpleasant views.

Melanie Phillips likes to shock and often writes stuff that’s difficult to take. I agree that the newspaper needs to be careful printing very personal views like this

Unfortunately the innocent civilians on both sides will always pay the price, as is the case with all conflicts. The insane idiocy of religions and their insidious grip on cultures and beliefs is to blame for this mess along with vested political interests that span the globe. The evil terrorism which happened on Saturday tipped the scale catastrophically against those who are actually innocent.

It doesn't sound like good reporting, no.

It's not reporting, it's an opinion piece. The problem with our newspapers is that the proportion of columnists to actual journalists has increased massively over the last decade or so, and that opinions masquerade as news. And they are never opinions from people whose views are balanced or nuanced in any way but who fit (and extend) the prevailing ideology of the newspaper in question, whether it's on the Left or Right.

According to NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, Gazans ARE taught to "revile the enemy" by Hamas.

"The Gazan defensive worldview is deeply engrained into the social fabric of the population. Children are raised to revile the enemy, i.e. Israel. There is limited critical thinking and access to information or to independent analysis. This significantly limits Israel’s ability to influence the Gazan population in such a way that it recognises the actual benefits of not being aligned with Hamas."

It's not incitement to hatred to note or explain the reality of Gazan social climate on the ground.

It doesn't mean ALL Palestinians agree with that particular ideology, but only a minority of Gazans are opposed to Hamas.

NATO StratCom COE identified this too:

"Local Gazans are not necessarily ideologically linked with Hamas’ struggles, but rather are facing existential crises, e.g. loss of life, livelihood, property, and controlled access to basic necessities (e.g. food/water/medicines), and this level of duress causes Gazans to choose the closer, more tangible support system, i.e. Hamas."

See NATO StratCom COE 2019 report entitled "Hamas' Use Of Human Shields In Gaza 2008-2014" under the thematic area of Lawfare.

I note above someone mentioned Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Its not exactly controversial as Republicans have brought their children up to hate Protestants and Loyalists theirs to hate Catholics in the past. But most did not - Nationalists and Unionists did the opposite. Being from a Catholic family who are NOT Republicans, Nationalists or Loyalists, we weren't brought up to hate anyone. Hating terrorist groups such as PIRA and UVF is normal though.

But, as I've said on previous threads, the Northern Ireland conflict was NOTHING like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not even close.

Northern Ireland is a very, very poor way to try to understand the Israeli-Palestinian situation. They simply do not correlate.

But you should be aware that Provisional Sinn Féin and Provisional IRA were part of an international terrorist network with Hamas, FARC, Gaddafi, ANC/MK, etc. This doesn't mean the NI conflict is similar to other ones - it means terrorist propaganda tries hard to link them in order to gain supporters to their respective causes. They target what's called "useful idiots".

Surely hate speech is hate speech - whether or it’s an opinion piece published for millions to read or traditional reporting.

I think the Times has a responsibility to avoid printing such inflammatory material.

@CrunchyCarrot you are right, I know most people would feel exactly the same as me. I guess what I was trying to say is that among all the violence, this particular story is one of those that haunts me most, and that’s partly because I imagine my own child in that situation. Of course, I also feel haunted by the images of the Palestinian children pulled out of the rubble by their desperate parents.
it’s just desperate all round.

@DownNative Melanie, is that you??

as I mentioned in my original post, I need look no further than my Palestinian neighbours, from Gaza, to find an example of a boy who happily plays befriends Jewish children.

NATO briefings are published to support intelligence / security activities. Very narrow interpretation of the world.
In Gaza like in anywhere else, there are decent people who teach their children the right values of love and respect towards others.

I think some people want us all in the West to forget about the decent human beings living in Gaza so we turn a blind eye to the crimes agains humanity Israel is about to commit in retaliation for an act of extreme barbarity perpetrated by a group of terrorists who obviously don’t represent the entire Palestinian population or act In their interests.

As horrific as seeing the fear in the children’s faces being kidnapped by those savage terrorists on Saturday. Truly disturbing.

Is it really hate speech or an expression of an unpleasant truth? Other governments, including the UK, have been expressing concerns about the radicalisation of the Gazan school curriculum for a few years now. A couple of months ago the EU passed a resolution to withdraw funding from Gaza education aid because of school textbooks which were teaching hate of jews.

Thank you for acknowledging that, OP. 🙂Yes it is a horrific thought, especially with innocent children involved. Adults know what they are doing, but kids are just copying at that age.

The whole situation is just terrible.

But some are. It's disingenuous to claim otherwise.

You only have to look at the videos of Palestinian kids with guns standing with the Hamas militants celebrating the deaths of Jews to see that.

On the contrary, NATO StratCom COE reports (not briefings!) are wide ranging taking into account a wide range of factors as they really are on the ground.

The point of NATO StratCom COE reports is to develop more effective means of dealing with conflict. In this case, the report deals with the problems of Hamas using Palestinian civilians and civilian infrastructure as shields which is illegal under International Humanitarian Law.

I'm afraid you're mistaken about NATO StratCom COE which is independent of NATO Command too.

Yes, it's true there are Palestinians from Gaza who happily befriend Israelis. There is no such thing as 100% of any population hating 100% of another anywhere on Earth.

I must point out to you that is an anecdote you provided. A very nice one, but an anecdote all the same. If you're relying on that to support your argument, that is called the Anecdotal Fallacy.

The reality is Hamas control Gaza and most Palestinians support them. The minority of Gazans who don't support Hamas are in a highly precarious situation. The NATO StratCom COE report I mentioned speaks about them and the importance of Israel and the international community being ready to help them otherwise Hamas and other hostile foreign States will end up crushing any Gazan population dissent.

It's not me who has the narrow view and I'm also very familiar with the reality of dealing with terrorist threats too.

@Willyoujustbequiet Some is an entirely different statement to all. The suggestion in the article is that all Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews and there is absolutely no agenda pushed on Israeli children, which is just obviously nonsense.

I found this in the Ukrainian war (my family are there)… there is an inability for people to understand that an entire country do not think the same. The actions of the state, or even a popular movement, are not a shorthand for the personal beliefs of every person.

I don’t understand why people can’t grasp this. There are Jewish Israelis who are appalled by the actions of their state and there are also many many Palestinians who just want peace and an end to violence. Many of these people are in particular women and mothers.

People still dehumanise those they don’t know. I do agree it’s a way of setting us up not to question the massive deaths that will occur in the Gaza Strip, and accept the suffering of children

And the best way to radicalise future adults is to bomb, maim, kill and starve their parents and little brothers and sisters. Go arms dealers!!!

Yes she should have said some not all.

And yes some children in Israel no doubt as you say. However I don't for one moment believe its anywhere near the same degree or extent of Hamas.

Go arms-dealers, narcissists, sociopaths and the money and power-hungry!

(Whip up the poor and desperate to do the actual frontline work for you of course. Do this by killing their parents and baby siblings).

Exactly this. If children are raised to hate their neighbour and develop a closed mind through indoctrination rather than be encouraged to think freely then unfortunately nothing will change except you breed a new generation of hate.

When Hamas were formed in 1987, they had minimal support from Palestinians. But in 2021, support for Hamas dramatically increased as AP News reported:

https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8e1323fc1cad819c34da08fd87

In 2022, respected Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki and his Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) carried out a survey looking at Palestinian support for armed groups. Main takeaways below:

• 72% of Palestinians support forming more armed groups in West Bank

• in Gaza, 84% of respondents supported concept of armed groups taking NO orders from the Palestinian Authority. This is HIGHER than in the West Bank where 65% supported the idea.

www.pcpsr.org/en/node/924

So, the support for Hamas, Lion's Den and other Palestinian armed groups is there from the Palestinian population. A minority do not support them.

At the same time, Palestinian support for the Fatah party led by President Abbas in the West Bank has collapsed to as low as 14%. Abbas is struggling to keep control of the Palestinian Authority territory in the face of support for armed groups such as Hamas.

So, not all Palestinians support Hamas. But it is NOT wrong to say Gazan social climate is geared around hating Israelis. That's what happens when a terrorist group controls a territory effectively and support from locals increases.

It's reality.