Ignorant person seeking to be educated - Isreal conflict

[hollyblueivy]

I apologise for me head being buried so far into the sand I have no idea what the headlines about Isreal / Palestine / Gaza / Hamas etc mean

Can anyone please (I realise my ignorance is unreasonable) explain to me what this is about. The history / context / what caused tensions to flair now??

Many thanks

Plenty available on line. This is a very lazy approach, it’s a complicated situations that will need more than one comment on a forum.

try starting with Wikipedia.

It’s Israel for starters.

Try reading news sites.

You could have googled a simplified synopsis in the time it took you to post this.
At this point these threads are just like spam
and are clogging up the board unnecessarily.

Not a good idea to ask this question in a forum. Every answer is likely to be massively biased in one direction or another. If you really want to know rather than asking a disingenuous question in order to shitstir then you need to look at academic history sources where the historians have made serious efforts to lay out both sides

There is one bit of land in the middle east that is more fertile for crops and full of fresh water than anywhere else in the region. People have been fighting over who has the right to live there for thousands of years - much longer than recorded history.

Anything happening now cannot possibly be interpreted without the context of that history and both sides will cite a worse attrocity done to them to justify every attrocity of of their own.

So Hamas killed people in Israel and now Israel are attacking Gaza.

This is a useful intro spotify.link/xVpgv7GRNDb

If you cba to do a little research then I don’t think you are really that concerned

Israel declared a state 70 years ago and some people do not recognise them and still refer to it as Palestine.

Start with the book of Genesis (around chapter 14) and work your way forward through about 2000+ years of history. That'll give you some idea of how far back this goes and how deeply rooted the ideas, pain and conflict are.

Anyone who gives you an answer in a few sentences on Mumsnet really doesn't know what they're talking about.

It sounds like it's heading for war.

It’s very complicated and goes back many, many years. There’s no easy solution. You could read up on the creation of Palestine and the creation of Israel - both relatively modern inventions - although the people of both are from groups that go back millennia. Wikipedia will do, as a starting point.

Pretty sure the OP just wants to know the background in layman’s terms.

the recent ‘the rest is politics’ podcast on the subject was really good

Kylie Jenner lost followers after supporting Israel - what I can't work out is why it is bad that she is showing support for people that have suffered a terror attack and lost lives.

Thank you that's really helpful - I have listened to that podcast before and it's very good at explaining things.

OP, please don't rely on MN to get your head around this very complex issue. There are many posters with strong biases towards both sides, and you will get a lot of opinion rather than fact.

People that support Palestine are considered anti semitism

It’s essentially people fighting over who owns/gets to live on a certain piece of land. What humans have fought over since the dawn of time.

Because where was the support for the Palestinians who have been dealing with this for years and years? Why are all these celebrities suddenly getting involved and speaking out now it's Israel under attack?

That's why people are unfollowing her

Because the counter argument would be that it’s Israel that is the occupying state, having driven Palestinians out of their homes and land, and they are the true aggressor. But it’s very complicated.

That’s far too simplistic. It’s possible to support the Palestinian people but condemn the actions of Hamas.

Listen to the podcast. It’s a very complicated history.

There is a great beginners article the BBC did about two days ago, here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67039975

It gives you some starting points to then google.

And don’t stop asking questions even when you get rude or mocking answers.

I'm really sorry if you are genuine OP. If so, previous mn'ers have alerted you to the dangers of trying to understand such a complex situation by asking on here.
However, I am concerned that this post is a daily mail stunt or similar. We mustn't feed the beasts. They spread hatred and misinformation.

I don’t know any people are being so rude to the poster . What an air of importance you all have. I myself have researched to familiarise myself with the issues and have found not one source that explains it in a simple manner. We all learn differently, and take things in differently.

The area has always been known as Palestine (since biblical times). The term 'Palestinian' was coined in the 1950s to refer to Arab Muslims who were living in that area. However the land historically has always been shared by Jews and Muslims.

If you're of a religious mindset (and obviously much of this conflict is rooted in religious ideas), it can be traced back to Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael in the Bible. Abraham and Sarah were very old and not able to have children but God promised Abraham he would be the father of many nations. Impatient for this to happen, he slept with his wife's maid Hagar and they had a son called Ishmael. But then Sarah got pregnant with Isaac and due to a massive fallout, Ishmael and Hagar left the family. The Bible then depicts these two half brothers as being at war ever since. So 'ownership' of the land can often be traced back to the biblical roots and the boundaries that God gave to Abraham. However if you're not religious, it can be hard to understand this. The current conflict goes back way further than the creation of the State of Israel.

To begin to understand, I think it's good to know where it all started.

Its a complex situation with a long history, you’re not the only one who wants to understand a bit. Wikipedia is generally a good place to start, maybe read about the 6 day war first, from there on you just click on the bits you want to know more about.
I also suggest you google the area to give yourself some idea of its location and the surrounding nations. That too will help you understand the situation. Also be aware when you google info that people can be quite extreme in their views. A final note, imho I think its important to differentiate between the actions taken by Hamas/the Israel government and the innocent people who are suffering.