Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

If you are anti-Zionist, what do you think Israel should do?

1000 replies

Poudretteite · 14/10/2023 14:39

Should Israel open its borders? Be given back to the Palestinian people? Where should the Jewish people go? What about the high risk of genocide?

Interested to hear as many people over the last few days have said they are anti-Zionist and that it's different to antisemitism.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
56
Ratsoffasinkingsauage · 14/10/2023 22:53

@Tiredandgrumpy31

No one is asking the people of Palestine (either Gaza or the West Bank) to put up, shut up or ship out.

They are being asked to be less bigoted about the idea of a state that consists mostly
of Jewish people. Like just to be more tolerant and understanding and spend less time hating another group of people and plotting to murder them.

Doesn’t seem unreasonable, right?

And in return Israel is being asked to pull out of illegal settlements and lift blockades (which they perhaps wouldn’t need if the terrorist attacks stopped). Also seems fair.

None of this seems unreasonable unless you are the kind of person who has imbibed countless thousands of bits of Hamas made propaganda bilge about the Jewish people as colonisers. If the existence of the state of Israel at all is abhorrent to you then you are not as liberal and broad minded as you think you are.

Beyondshock · 14/10/2023 22:55

You know everyone keeps saying saying Hamas are terrorists. What about the Israeli defence force…..just because they’re an army we recognise, and their leadership is a government we recognise, should not mean that when they’re actions are as callous as what we’ve seen, we do not call them what they are. The Israeli government, the IDF and ANYONE that supports the current Israeli leadership is a terrorist and a terrorist sympathiser. This language shouldn’t be EXCLUSIVELY used for brown people. They’re terrorists. Simple.

Beyondshock · 14/10/2023 22:57

And they’re terrorists of THE MOST BRUTAL KIND. Something the world hasn’t seen in a long long long time. Shocking that anyone can defend and support Israel at this time.

SLBMofMed · 14/10/2023 22:58

Hearing that Iran has put forward they will intervene should Israel go all in on Gaza. There's also been rockets and artillery fired from Syria now as well as Lebanon.

The US has pledged that they will stop any incursions by Hezbollah and Syria, hence the two CVBGs in the Med. This could get very hot, very quickly.

Reallifelurker · 14/10/2023 23:00

You know everyone keeps saying saying Hamas are terrorists. What about the Israeli defence force…..just because they’re an army we recognise, and their leadership is a government we recognise, should not mean that when they’re actions are as callous as what we’ve seen, we do not call them what they are.

Well to be fair it’s not like they’ve never been called out for their more dubious actions. During the 2014 war Israeli’s themselves were on protest march's

Trulywonderful · 14/10/2023 23:01

Reallifelurker · 14/10/2023 22:52

That is you translating zionist to mean something it doesn't
Zionism is the belief in a Jewish homeland in the land of Israel or generally corresponding to it.

But the building of settlements is motivated by the desire to create this homeland isn’t it ? Can’t think of any other reason for it.

Or the desire by Political Zionists to wind up trouble.

Though sometimes to be far it has been after court cases to win back the land or houses taken from families during the Jordan ethic cleansing of Jews from the west bank.

However a lot is just shit stirring from some nutter politians and equally nut job Settlers. What can I say every country has politians that are dodgy at some point and a small percentage of not representative of general population idiots that they are both embarrassed and appualed by.

Ratsoffasinkingsauage · 14/10/2023 23:03

@Beyondshock

You are kidding, right? One is the standing army for a nation that Under takes defence against attack from neighbouring nations and the other are a group funded by Iran that under take kidnapping, torture and bomb attacks (even in the country they claim to govern) against anyone they see as anti-Islamic in the name of their overall goal to kill ever Jew on earth and cleanse the levant of Jewish people.

I love how you can defend people who think homosexuality is an abomination and treat women with brutality.

You don’t see the difference?

Bumbamtamytam · 14/10/2023 23:03

And this isn't to say Jews owe anything to Turks it was the right thing to do and still would be.. Jews suffered so much in history. I grew up with Jewish friends as neighbours, friends at school, and there's also a sizeable community today. I just don't want my country to be counted in anyway anti Israeli or Arab in some map, because we aren't Arab, neither culturally nor ethnically. I'm sad to see this bloodbath and my heart goes out to all murdered and orphaned children most of all...

Ameni · 14/10/2023 23:03

@Ratsoffasinkingsauage @asterel

No ‘side’ was taken in my post just a point on definitions for clarity - Palestinian is not a religion. Just a simple and straightforward point.

Definition of terms is important in debate and clearer, simple reiteration of definitions previously made is helpful for clarity too.

This was the only point I was making at that time. I apologise if it was triggering to you as that was not my intention. I appreciate this is an emotive situation and thread.

DrinkingMyWaterMindingMyBiz · 14/10/2023 23:04

Reallifelurker · 14/10/2023 22:26

What this is describing isn't anti zionism then.
It's pro israel, pro palestine and pro a peaceful two state solution which is exactly what zionism is

It’s the view that the creation of Israel was problematic but it would be very unethical for it to be made to cease to exist. If such a thing were even possible.

I would attribute the building of settlements and the occupied territories to Zionism though. So anti Zionism in that sense.

Edited

I would attribute the building of settlements and the occupied territories to Zionism though. So anti Zionism in that sense.

Exactly this. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but is Zionism not about the protection and development of Israel as a Jewish nation? This would require taking more and more of Palestine over, which is exactly what has been happening for a number of years. So yes, I am an anti-Zionist in that case. Does this make me anti-Semitic?

Ratsoffasinkingsauage · 14/10/2023 23:06

@SLBMofMed

I think that was Iran’s end game all along. What better for the most restrictive, totalitarian government in the world to wipe out Israel while being cheered on by every left leaning person in the west.

Sickening.

Trulywonderful · 14/10/2023 23:07

Beyondshock · 14/10/2023 22:55

You know everyone keeps saying saying Hamas are terrorists. What about the Israeli defence force…..just because they’re an army we recognise, and their leadership is a government we recognise, should not mean that when they’re actions are as callous as what we’ve seen, we do not call them what they are. The Israeli government, the IDF and ANYONE that supports the current Israeli leadership is a terrorist and a terrorist sympathiser. This language shouldn’t be EXCLUSIVELY used for brown people. They’re terrorists. Simple.

What colour do you believe all Israelis are and what colour do you believe all Hamas
& co are?

Also are you saying that Hamas are not terrorists?

I believe you may have stubble into the wrong conflict or are very ill informed on both those matters.

Yours is the most confusing post today, congratulations 👏

Ameni · 14/10/2023 23:09

For clarity The IRA were called terrorists.

OneHurtSpaggettio · 14/10/2023 23:10

https://twitter.com/resist_05/status/1712402483115614498?s=48

A poster said that anyone who says that Israelis are colonisers and anti-Semites—so is Gabor Mate, a holocaust survivor, an anti-Semite?

Make no mistake: this is a genocide of the Palestinian people.

Paid for by the US. Okayed by the U.K.

The ignorance on this thread is shocking. I’m sure this post will be flagged for saying the truth whilst the post on the first page telling Palestinians, who have lived in the homeland for thousands of years, to just “find another country to live in” with the implication being that foreign Jews from all over the world have a right to land whilst the people actually from there do not.

So much perpetuating of the Western media shill that all Arabs are violent and uncontrollable, who of course need to sit down politely and be quiet with their legs crossed whilst they are subjected to genocide.

2,200+ Palestinians have been brutally murdered. 750+ of those civilians killed were CHILDREN. 460+ were women.

Israel has cut off food, water, electricity to Gaza (breaking international law, denying basic survival rights).

Israel has targeted hospitals and densely-populated areas with white phosphorus (a chemical weapon).

So many on this thread are actively dehumanising the Palestinians. This eases along this genocide.

The war crimes committed by Israel continue to stack up, and a generation of dead or traumatised children is left in its wake.

So Hamas are terrorists and the Israeli government are… what exactly?

Stop legitimising genocide of Palestinians. Stop legitimising apartheid.

https://twitter.com/resist_05/status/1712402483115614498?s=48

asterel · 14/10/2023 23:11

Ameni · 14/10/2023 23:03

@Ratsoffasinkingsauage @asterel

No ‘side’ was taken in my post just a point on definitions for clarity - Palestinian is not a religion. Just a simple and straightforward point.

Definition of terms is important in debate and clearer, simple reiteration of definitions previously made is helpful for clarity too.

This was the only point I was making at that time. I apologise if it was triggering to you as that was not my intention. I appreciate this is an emotive situation and thread.

It’s not triggering, but several of us had actually pointed this out repeatedly throughout the thread.

LemonyTicket · 14/10/2023 23:11

@Trulywonderful

I think my anger at the "anti zionism isn't antisemitism" brigade is more complex than that. Opposition to the idea of Jews having a homeland might be fine if you have an actual, cogent, alternative ideology by which you think people should live in the principles of equality. And it would have to be one Palestinians agreed to or it's pointless. But I think the concept of "anti zionism" as it's appeared in modern / fashionable circles, breeds antisemitism.

I wrote a post earlier on why:

First of all, the word “Zionism,” resonates for many people as an expression of hope for Jewish survival and liberation. Anyone who has read and knows the history knows they did not live free. Not anywhere. Not ever. But in our day the left has turned the word “Zionism” into an anti Jewish swear word of sorts, which they have constructed to mean whatever they want it to mean.

So in effect, the left defines Jews' Zionism for Jews, against their will, and without discussing it with them. It defines Zionism as racism or expansionism or support for apartheid. In so doing it defines most Jews against their will, as not decent human beings like the rest of humanity.

People who are hostile to Zionism have given the word "Zionism" a meaning that reflects their own hostility rather than the actual meaning of the word to the people whom it describes. On another thread, for example, the OP said she thought it meant "genocide" and "oppression". It certainly doesn't mean that to the people who are Zionists but if everyone defines them as that, then the damage is already done.

Anti Zionism is common amongst the modern left because it is based on what the Marxists see as an “idealist” system of living - equality and so on. It understands Israel as the manifestation of racist ideology (that Jews have an ethno state because they think they are superior), rather than it being a result of the material reality (that the history proved that Jews were actually unable to life in this "idealistic" world without being ritually killed and subjugated).

In the leftie mind, "Zionism" must be racism because a country that is majority Jewish and that is not a state for all its citizens past and present, must be racist. It figures that the state prioritises the rights of Jews, on the basis of their ethnicity or religion, over those of non-Jewish origin must be racist and bad. They dismiss entirely that for the last 700 years (including now) that the same applies to every Muslim state. It dismisses the reality that Jews lived for 600 years as Dhimmi (which truly is apartheid) and under constant threat of death.

That blatant double standard is justified with the idea that Israel should not exist anyway, as it was founded on the settler-colonial theft of land, which rightly belongs to “indigenous” Palestinians. They don't consider the possibility that Jews are also indigenous, or that Arabs may be migrants (a lot are).

It fixates on the idea that there are many Palestinians who are now not living where there families lived 100 years ago. But Jews today do not live where their families lived 100 years ago. Their families did not choose to move but were exiled or had to run away from certain death. Most of them did not choose where to go, they went where they would be allowed to go. And Jews obviously have family connection to other Jews.

Most perniciously of all, the new definition of “Zionism” in the modern left's imagination frequently characterises Jews as participating in dishonest global networks, conspiracies of lies and propaganda, in their own selfish interest. The idea of a "Israel lobby", controlling the world and policing what we say in order to allow them to continue being racist toerags without criticism. Even regular British Jews are accused each day of being part of this nefarious scheme.

So really modern "anti Zionism" often has little to do with proposing equality and multicultural ways of living together in equality. It more often that not targets solely Jews as underserving of freedom and safety from more dominant groups, and re-definitely their perfectly understandable hopes for the things all others take for granted as an expression of their negative characteristics.

So "Zionists" become a kind of evil sub set of people, and by portraying the overwhelming majority of Jews in the world as the enemies of all that is good, anti Zionism brings back to life the general idea that most Jews are "bad". The idea of most Jews as the “enemy of the people” is re-ignited. Which really was (I hoped) an ideology that I thought was stamped out after the Holocaust.

So anti Zionism in and of itself isn't anti semitic. But certainly the way the modern left goes about it reignites a lot of most antisemitic myths and ideas history has seen. Which makes me very sad, as I am a leftie and had to disassociate from politics and so on because I felt discriminated against due to them allowing "zionists" to be demonised in the above ways.

Ratsoffasinkingsauage · 14/10/2023 23:12

The IRA were terrorists. What’s your point? The peace was achieved despite the paramilitary groups, not because of them.

Don’t drag Northern Ireland into this. That was a completely different situation. It is nothing like what is happening in Gaza.

WaveyGodshawk · 14/10/2023 23:14

Ameni · 14/10/2023 23:09

For clarity The IRA were called terrorists.

What do you mean by "called" - the IRA were terrorists, and I say that as an Irish person.

feralunderclass · 14/10/2023 23:16

Ratsoffasinkingsauage · 14/10/2023 22:53

@Tiredandgrumpy31

No one is asking the people of Palestine (either Gaza or the West Bank) to put up, shut up or ship out.

They are being asked to be less bigoted about the idea of a state that consists mostly
of Jewish people. Like just to be more tolerant and understanding and spend less time hating another group of people and plotting to murder them.

Doesn’t seem unreasonable, right?

And in return Israel is being asked to pull out of illegal settlements and lift blockades (which they perhaps wouldn’t need if the terrorist attacks stopped). Also seems fair.

None of this seems unreasonable unless you are the kind of person who has imbibed countless thousands of bits of Hamas made propaganda bilge about the Jewish people as colonisers. If the existence of the state of Israel at all is abhorrent to you then you are not as liberal and broad minded as you think you are.

Is this a joke? Less bigoted...more tolerant... ? . If this was a barren wasteland you might have a point. This is where people live. Their family homes for generations, the farms they grew and cultivated are being confiscated and/or destroyed. If I came along to your house tonight and made you leave by force because it was "my right and my people originated here 4000 years ago, are you going to hand me the keys and happily skip out because to do otherwise would be " unreasonable?". Or, would you feel a massive sense of loss, injustice, anger etc that your property had been stolen? This is happening everyday.

Trulywonderful · 14/10/2023 23:17

Ratsoffasinkingsauage · 14/10/2023 23:06

@SLBMofMed

I think that was Iran’s end game all along. What better for the most restrictive, totalitarian government in the world to wipe out Israel while being cheered on by every left leaning person in the west.

Sickening.

Wipe out, humiliate or at least stop the friendship forming with other Arabs states that has been happening lately.

The age old Islam thing they believe about Jews being lesser people means they get to win just by convincing all the useful idiots in the west that are willing to believe propaganda and oh poor Hamas the resistance fighters.

It was a long time coming and obvious once Russia started on Ukraine that Iran was going to start on Israel. It will be China starting up next. Just wait they have been prepping up for a land grab since Ukraine too.

Ameni · 14/10/2023 23:17

asterel · 14/10/2023 23:11

It’s not triggering, but several of us had actually pointed this out repeatedly throughout the thread.

I explained a clearer simpler definition was helpful and I supplied it.

I pleased to hear it wasn’t triggering. Perhaps just annoying then? 😆 (genuine friendly laugh btw)

Ratsoffasinkingsauage · 14/10/2023 23:18

@feralunderclass

Since that is not what has happened I’m not going to bother replying to your drivel. Such over emotive, fact free none sense.

silentmight · 14/10/2023 23:18

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

LemonyTicket · 14/10/2023 23:19

Beyondshock · 14/10/2023 22:57

And they’re terrorists of THE MOST BRUTAL KIND. Something the world hasn’t seen in a long long long time. Shocking that anyone can defend and support Israel at this time.

You'd change your tune quick enough if I locked you up with the IDF and Hamas for a week each. Don't be ridiculous. The IDF might be, in some cases extremely brutal, but their express purpose is security and protection. Hamas purpose is murdering civilians and laughing about it. Get a grip.

(and there's plenty of white terrorists)

asterel · 14/10/2023 23:19

Ameni · 14/10/2023 23:09

For clarity The IRA were called terrorists.

Not sure what you mean here - they were terrorists. They bombed, shot, killed and kneecapped their opponents and lots of innocent people, including children, in the name of religion and nationalism. How are Hamas different?

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is not accepting new messages.
Swipe left for the next trending thread