To think its not okay to great gazans as israel has been

[LethargicButAwesome]

Gaza has no food, no electricity and no water. On top of that they are being bombarded constantly
Israel has bombed the only escape route for refugees via Egypt, there is no way out
israel continues the blockage by air, land and sea - no aid can get in, no one can get out.
israel has said they will obliterate Gaza.

this is unprecedented, no matter what happens with governments or wars, you have refugee camps…safe havens…(often difficult) access to water - how are we even debating that this is acceptable? Am i the only person thinking this is the human race at its absolute worst? Its heartbreaking to watch, literally noone is doing anything - we are observing a genocide.

From memory, so happy to be corrected, but it's more like 57% have a "somewhat possitive" opinion of Hamas. Not quite the same as "most support Hamas". I believe there are also polls showing that most Gazans are in favour of a 2 state solution and maintaining cease fire.
Besides, none of those polls reflect opinions since last week's events.

Firstly it's not just Hamas. They're not the only terrorist group in Gaza. You want to add in support for the others? It gets ugly. What Hamas did last week was different in scale only to what they've done in the past. Gazans know that as well as anyone else.

I don't get information from PBS. I am also unconcerned with whether an idea is 'dangerous' or not. My only concern is what is or is not true. Apart from which, it should go without saying that falsehoods are dangerous.

'what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”'

Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates | U.S. First Islamic Confrontation (city-journal.org)

The Israeli-Palestine conflict only dates to the early 20th century if you view it as completely separate from the pre-existing conflict in the area. Which makes no sense as that conflict is one of the reasons the Jews wanted their own state, and one of the reasons the Arabs refused to allow it. It's also not separate from the several centuries of dhimmitude imposed on the non-muslims in the area after the Islamic conquest. That makes no sense.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/17/hamas-releases-video-of-french-israeli-woman-held-hostage

https://news.sky.com/story/impossible-to-know-how-many-israeli-hostages-are-still-alive-says-hamas-official-12985674

Rishi Sunak says six Britons were killed in Hamas raid on Israel and 10 others are missing
• He also pledged an extra £10m in aid to help Palestinian civilians

I can't find any polls that show that. Feel free to link them.
Regardless, it's not justified to take military action on civilians based on opinion polls.

No, it does make sense because it takes into account the quiet moments in history in the area.

For example, if you watch The Holyland And US available on BBC iPlayer, you'll find that a man called Aquila al-Hasi was a friend of the Jewish community, IIRC.

Also, you'll hear the Arab and Jewish communities worked as well as lived together in a mixed society in Jaffa where they picked oranges together. 13 million boxes were sent globally.

You'll hear that all that changed in 1947 when the United Nations partition plan was put into practice and when Israel declared independence.

These are illustrative examples.

Historical events are not necessarily linked together in an unbroken chain of historical causation and effect down the ages. Although a popular misconception of history, it is this simplistic view that is illogical as well as irrational.

So, history is after the fact mined for grievances in order to perpetrate conflict all over the world.

History itself is abused.

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

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

And:

"....there is widespread popular appeal for competing armed Palestinian factions, including those involved in the attack. Overall, 57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas—along with similar percentages of Palestinians in the West Bank (52%) and East Jerusalem (64%)—though this is fewer than those who support Fatah (64%).

But it is organizations like Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Lion’s Den that receive the most widespread popular support in Gaza. About three quarters of Gazans express support for both groups, including 40% who see the Lion’s Den in a “very positive” light, an attitude shared by a similar percentage of West Bank residents."

www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-show-majority-gazans-were-against-breaking-ceasefire-hamas-and-hezbollah#:~:text=Overall%2C%2057%25%20of%20Gazans%20express,who%20support%20Fatah%20(64%25).

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.

Important to note that Abbas' Fatah party also has an armed wing - Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. So, there is a LOT of Palestinian support for terrorist groups overall.

So, not all Palestinians support Hamas. But it is NOT wrong to say that a majority of Palestinians support terrorist groups.

These are all from 2021, 2022 and 2023.

@DownNative

No it perfectly allows for quieter, more peaceful periods interspersed with more violent periods. Especially when, as you seem to be overlooking, the non-muslim population were dhimmis throughout that time. 'Conflict' is not the only source of the current conflict! The fact the Jews largely accepted their second-class citizen status is the only reason it didn't result in conflict. It's not as if they had any other option but to accept oppression.

I'm very aware that the history is not one of unbroken Hamas-style atrocities. That's irrelevant. You could say the same thing of attitudes to the Jews in Europe. There are cycles in this history of more tolerance and secularism, then reactions against it and a swing the other way.

It didn't simply all change in 1947. Prior to that the refusal to accept any Jewish state, even 500 square miles, is inseparable from the fact of the Islamic conquest and the consequent impossibility of voluntarily granting any of that land to former dhimmis.

The PBS link is simply a good overview of where the study of terrorism, security and counter-terrorism is at.

Today's Islamic Jihad terrorism is not centuries old, but relatively recent from late 1960s to present day. Especially from the Soviet conflict in Afghanistan onwards.

There is a distinguishing of modern day Jihad from the Jihad of, say, 800 years ago since they're not the same.

The PBS link is simply a good overview of where the study of terrorism, security and counter-terrorism is at.

Today's Islamic Jihad terrorism is not centuries old, but relatively recent from late 1960s to present day. Especially from the Soviet conflict in Afghanistan onwards.

There is a distinguishing of modern day Jihad from the Jihad of, say, 800 years ago since they're not the same.

@DownNative

The word terrorism didn't even exist until the French revolution and applying it outside of a western context is odd to begin with. Even if it weren't being used to define a politically inconvenient truth out of existence.

I don't care where people studying terrorism are at. Even if I did, have you seen, say, top American universities recently?! If an appeal to authority ever worked on me, which it doesn't, appealing to the western expert class in 2023 certainly won't.

I notice you also seem to be drawing a false binary between 800 years ago and the 1960's, as if there were some gap in between. I won't be allowed by the censors to correct that but you know that's wrong anyway. I specifically drew your attention to just one small incident from 1785 which expresses the exact same ideology Hamas believes in. You'll find an almost infinite number of others from every part of the relevant world for 1400 years, if you look.

I’d certainly agree with that.

If Israel hadn't been attacking the Palestinians since 1948 then perhaps they wouldn't have felt the need to create a terrorist organisation in order to fight back. Actions have consequences.

Yet that's not how the conflict began!

The following excerpts have been taken from the United Nations website:

www.un.org/unispal/history/

"Palestine was among former Ottoman territories placed under UK administration by the League of Nations in 1922. "

You can see in this link which countries were members of the League Of Nations in 1922 when Palestine was placed under UK administration.

www.britannica.com/topic/League-of-Nations/Members-of-the-League-of-Nations

"UK considered various formulas to bring independence to a land ravaged by violence. In 1947, the UK turned the Palestine problem over to the UN."

Under British administration, Palestine was NOT partitioned, but you will often hear people talking as though it was!
So, we move on to the actual partition itself:

"After looking at alternatives, the UN proposed terminating the Mandate and partitioning Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized (Resolution 181 (II) of 1947)."

As we can see, the partition of Palestine was not caused by the British Government alone.

The collective members of the United Nations made that decision.

"One of the two envisaged States proclaimed its independence as Israel and in the 1948 war involving neighbouring Arab States expanded to 77 percent of the territory of mandate Palestine, including the larger part of Jerusalem. "

The Office Of The Historian in the United States says the following:

"The Arab-Israeli War of 1948 broke out when five Arab nations invaded territory in the former Palestinian mandate immediately following the announcement of the independence of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948."

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/arab-israeli-war

Personally, I would argue it was the FIVE Arab States who kickstarted the Arab-Israeli aka Israeli-Palestinian conflict since they invaded Israel in an act of aggression that was a declaration of war in any language. The intention was to strangle the State of Israel at birth.

They failed.

You can see how a tiny minority State surrounded by hostile Arab countries had to take drastic emergency security measures to protect itself and its people. Measures that has never been able to go away since its had threats within (Palestinians) and outwith (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq & Lebanon in 1948) with Iran a further threat which has various Palestinian terrorist proxy groups on either side of Israel at its disposal to attack the State in 2023.

As you said, actions have consequences.

A reminder of how small Israel is in comparison to other States in the Arab World.

I didn't say the history started in 1948, I said that the Israelis had been attacking the Palestinians since then.

Where do you expect the Palestinians to go? You expect all Arabs to clear out of Israel? The Israelis have an entitlement to that land? Do the Palestinians all deserve to die?

I didn't say you said history started in 1948. And I'm telling you it was the Arabs who attacked Israel first.

It was the FIVE Arab nations' invasion that kickstarted what used to be called the Arab-Israeli War but is now called the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Your questions show you've not really digested anything I've said. All the decades of conflict could have been avoided if Palestinian leaders had accepted the United Nations 1947 partition plan.

Since then, Palestinian leaders have rejected every single peace deal to the point where even the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman is pretty exasperated with the Palestinians.

Put that information together with the polls showing only 7% of Palestinians agree with sharing the land with Jews and accepting the Jewish people have SOME land ownership rights. The Jewish community agrees that Palestinians have some land ownership rights - 30% of them.

It's quite clear Palestinian leaders have no intention accepting any peace deal, recognising Israel and want the region to be a single Palestinian State.

That's an unsustainable position to take.

The partition plan. Did the Arabs have any choice in this or was it thrust upon them?

And what of the land that the settlers have taken? Ousted from their homes, the Palestinians have just had to get on with it, losing incrementally more and more land and being killed if they object.

They refused every partition plan before 1948. Including one in 1938 where the British were only going to give the Jews 500 square miles. They refused to give the Jews any land for their state.