To have reservations about a friendship with a woman who refers to Israel's actions in Gaza as a genocide?

[Oodiks]

I like this woman a lot, but we have very differing world views, specifically her belief that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

We work at a university and were coming back from lunch together when she commented that she was pleased the protestors hadn't come back. I agreed, noting how nerve wracking it must have been for Jewish students on campus to run the gauntlet of pro-Palestinian / anti-Zionist posters in the encampment.

We'd been talking about the American election over lunch, and I thought we'd agreed that Kamala Harris was the better candidate for her views on climate change, if nothing else, but then my 'friend' commented on Biden/Harris sending arms "to support the genocide" and I was left kind of speechless.

Am I being unreasonable to feel unsure about continuing this friendship?

That is clear proof to me that Israel values the lives of its citizens far more than Hamas does. Does it show you something different?

How can you say that there was no moral outrage when Russia attacked Ukraine? There was wall to wall coverage and people donated money and welcomed Ukrainian refugees into their home.

Israel is an ally of the UK and the US and is supposed to be a liberal democracy. North Korea is a closed country where western journalists aren't allowed. The UK sells weapons to Israel so we have some culpability.

I'm sure that antisemitism is a factor in some people's condemnation of Israel's actions and support of the Palestinians, but mostly people are outraged by Netanyahu's and the Israeli govenment's actions and the huge civilian death toll in Gaza and now the Lebanon.

Netanyahu doesn't care about the civilian deaths but he doesn't really care about the hostages and their families either.

Ha! It shows that Netanyahu doesn't give a shit about his own people and would rather just bomb as many countries as he can to continue staying as PM.

What has that got to do with Hezbollah firing 8000 rockets into Israel over the past year? Do you know any countries that would just ignore that?

You are over simplifying and you know it. It’s almost akin to virtue signalling. Israel are not an innocent party to this conflict. It’s been pointed out time and time again that the actions of this expansionist state have dictated how the conflict has evolved.

It’s 57 years since the occupation of the Palestinian Territory and 17 years of the Gaza blockade. Both the occupation and the blockade affect every aspect of life for Palestinians – they dictate where they can live and study, and who they can marry. The blockade has devastated Gaza’s economy, caused widespread destruction and left most people largely cut off from the outside world. In 2023 before the present conflict began, over one million Palestinians in Gaza didn’t have enough food to feed their families, despite receiving food assistance or other forms of support.

Tough restrictions apply to the main commercial crossing into Gaza and as a result limited amount of fuel and cooking gas was reaching hospitals, homes and business. The fishing zone was reduced from 6 to 3 nautical miles, thus preventing fishermen from accessing 85% of the fishing waters agreed under the Oslo Accords. Almost half of the working-age population were unemployed.

These are among the reasons Hamas continues to attack Israel. Israel retaliates and cites international law on human shielding as justification for paying no regard to the citizens killed in the process. They accuse Hamas of firing rockets from civilian locations - so in Israel’s eyes there are no civilians in Gaza, only terrorists and their human shields, and as such civilians lose their protection. This is despite several investigations, including those of Amnesty International, concluding that Hamas’ use of these locations did not qualify under international law as shielding.

He's also actively on trial in Israel for numerous crimes of corruption. He's a bad man who is going to tip the whole region into war.

The actions of Hamas a year ago were awful, and deserved a response, but what has been done is an atrocity.

Israel's former PM Ehud Olmert said it best on the news last night, he said the response should not have been based on the emotion of anger, but conducted in a measured way.

Taking out terrorist cells, taking out terrorist leaders is fine, but killing countless thousands of innocent men, women and children and razing their country to the ground is far from fine, and can't be justified, by anyone.

It’s called a war. Terrible things happen in a war. That’s why people shouldn’t start them.

Do you really think that people who think Israel is commiting genocide in Gaza support Hamas?

The leaders of Hamas are genocidal anti-semites who committed war crimes on October 7.

I'm not sure what argument you are making. The ICC also having arrest warrants out for the leaders of Hamas doesn't mean that Israel's actions aren't genocide.

Yes, it does. It shows me that Netanyahu doesn’t give Jack Shit about his people. He has a vested interest because he’s trying to hang on to power. His approval rating was through the floor before the present conflict began - guess which way it’s headed now ? And you call me naive ?

It’s genocide.

That's why people shouldn't occupy land that isn't theirs and then proceed to oppress them for decades.

Quite right. It is a genocide and those claiming otherwise are not fooling the masses who can see it as clear as day.

Yep, because, as soon as he looses power and the emergency ends he's back in court and looking at serious jail time on corruption charges. He needs this war, its a selfish goal, and he cares not how many of his people and others die on the way.

All of that has nothing to do with the points I made. You regard it as over-simplification but it seems quite reasonable to me: either people support Hamas's aim in their founding charter to kill all Jews, and Hezbollah's declared aim of "wiping Israel off the map", or they don’t.

You seem to be unable to bring yourself to condemn either.

Anyone who uses the word "Human Shields" has already dehumanized a group of people

This. It’s the most twisted logic of all time. You kill people and then avoid responsibility by saying they were (deliberately) in the way in the way of your weapons!

There is antisemitism. There is always a rise in antisemitism when Israel is taking military action in Gaza.

There is also islamaphobia which people are much less outraged about.

This still doesn't mean that only antisemites are accusing Israel of genocide or that everyone who thinks that it is a genocide is an antisemite.

I’d have reservations about a friendship with anyone who didn’t

How else would you describe what's happening

So no one can criticise the actions of the Israeli government because some people are antisemitic?

Does that mean we can’t criticise Hamas because some people are islamaphobic?

"War".

That is Netanyahu's trump card (no pun intended). He just labels every criticism or concern about his actions as antisemitism.

Everything he does is to benefit himself. Like Trump, he needs to stay in power to stay out of prison. There are thousands of Israelis out on the streets every day and every night protesting his actions. He has no empathy only greed and self-interest. He doesn't care about the hostages. All his actions make the return of the hostages less likely and more likely that they will be killed by Israeli weapons.

And crimes thereof

No, people get killed because their military leaders site rocket-launchers, control-rooms and themselves in civilian areas, including schools and hospitals. And then say they welcome the "martyrdom" of civilians because it makes onlookers have more sympathy for their cause.

And that somehow justifies objectively horrific attacks. Make it make sense.

Are people really stupid enough to think killing civilians removes terrorists? You could kill every terrorist on the planet but if you stir up enough hate in the process, someone else will grow with enough hate to want to kill you.