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?

This.

With all do respect, this thread started by talking about your friends opinions of what was happening in Palestine. You're not wrong in what you say about anti semitic attacks increasing in other parts of the world. But the original thread was started based on your concerns about your friends views that Israel is committing Genocide. While you may find the term overused, there is real concern in the international community and from UN human rights experts that this is the case.

The fact that some terrible people are using this to take up against the Jewish communities elsewhere does not change the realities of the concerns that are taking place in Palestine.

Thank you @ruthcs2 it is going to take a lot of brave jewish people to openly object to Netanyahu’s thirst for blood.

No, I don’t "see how that works". I didn’t say it was the people's fault for being in the hospital, I said it was Hamas's fault for siting themselves in civilian places like hospitals.

What in my post do you disagree with?

who are using Palestinians as human shields

Yes, this is what hostage-takers do – the solution is not to kill all the hostages too.

How do people not realise what a lame, risible, weak argument this line is.

I don’t ‘admit’ anything - you might do better at understanding the basics of international law if you actually read posts instead of skimming them to look for reasons to throw accusations and indulge in virtue signalling in response to every post you don’t agree with. Of course it makes a difference. Hamas’ use of civilian locations to launch rockets doesn’t meet the definition of using those civilians as human sheilds under international law. Therefore those civilians are just civilians, not human shields. So they are not legitimate targets - Israel is breaking international law by targeting them.

It is possible to oppose Netanyahu and still support Israel's right to defend itself and to exist, you know.

Israel should also be accountable for illegally occupying Palestinian land, that's also terrorism, also you can't compare Russia/Ukraine with Palestine as no one is bombing the shit out of Russia for their actions are they, their children can sleep safely in their beds, as they should be able to

What, because the entire population hasn’t yet been fully eradicated?!

Do your research, educate yourself and you’ll discover Israel has a lot more say in things than it lets on.

Israel chose to target and kill journalists, Israel chose to attack hospitals, Israel is choosing to kill disabled people, Israel chose to switch off NICU machines, Israel chose to tell a hospital the size of St Thomas’ in central London to evacuate when all hospitals have said this was a near impossible task. This is not regurgitation or an impossible standard. This isn’t is ww2 its a walkway to ww3. Israel is making the region unsafe.

Funny that the humanitarian workers in the civilian areas like schools and hospitals don’t see any signs of military operations. All they see is carnage. In the name of Israel defending itself.

Collective punishment is the word.

And even if they did that doesn't legitimise the killing of civilians.

How do you know the majority of Gazan citizens are pro Hamas ? Has anybody asked them ? No, they haven’t. Least of all Hamas itself - there haven’t been democratic elections in Gaza since 2006.

But Israel is not targeting them. It is targeting the rocket launchers that you agree - if that’s the word you prefer - Hamas has placed on civilian sites.

By your logic, any terrorists or fighters of any kind in a war, and their weaponry, should be free from attack or retribution as long as they carefully place themselves and their weapons on civilian sites. Maybe that makes sense to you, but it doesn’t to me.

Incidentally, has there ever been another war where one of the sides warns civilians to leave an area before it attacks targets in that area? But if course you won’t want to give Israel any credit for that.

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/26/g-s1-12949/khalil-shikaki-palestinian-polling-israel-gaza-hamas

I disagree that it’s ok to bomb a hospital or school claiming that Hamas is inside; and when it turns out that you kill civilians, including women and children (with those bombs you dropped), you shirk responsibility for their deaths on the grounds that they were “human shields”.

This is a completely twisted and dehumanising logic. It is a logic that justifies the killing of innocent people by labelling them military tools.

Do you have links/sources to share on this? I saw one study from the Pew Research Centre from last year that said Hamas enjoyed majority support in Gaza and the West Bank and another from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research from this year that said much the same including that if an election was held Hamas would defeat the Fatah party.

If the Palestinian people genuinely don't support Hamas why aren't they working with Israel, or the international community to remove them? That would be an absolutely monumental step towards peace but from what I've read it seems that more Palestinians agree with Hamas and their views than don't.

How you could arrive at this conclusion is beyond me. You think that Israel's refusal to negotiate for the release of the remaining hostages brutally taken by Hamas a year ago shows they care about their citizens? Seriously? You'll find that the relatives and friends of these hostages don't agree with you.

Do you think it is right for Hamas or any other fighters to ever position themselves or their weaponry in civilian areas or civilian structures? Should doing so make them safe from reprisals or attacks? Either way, it’s clear they are the ones responsible for any resulting casualties.

Wow and I bet the conflict in Northern Ireland was just Irish bad, English good?

A traumatised nation is Gaza
The Christians living in Gaza have lived their for thousands of years too
Yet the nakba in 1948 left them thrown out of their villages
Christian villages were wiped out and taken by Israel.
Following the Christians fleeing, they were unable to get citizenship whereas any Jew was allowed to come to Israel and have immediate citizenship.
Apartheid
It did not start on October 7th
It started over 70 years ago
Wake up
Stop the bs

Whether or not they support Hamas, it's not hard to understand why the Palestinians won't work with Israel towards peace. The power balance is hugely skewed in Israel's favour. Plus they're too busy now trying to survive in a city that's been blown to bits but that they can't leave to get down to any kind of peace talks.

You can't blame civilians for any of this. It's grossly unfair to do so. But it's certain that what's happening in Gaza and now Lebanon will harden pro-Hammas/pro-Hezbollah sentiments, unfortunately. This will be radicalising the survivors.

It is the logic of genocide.

There's no proof they even do this, not that it makes it OK for Israel to cause mass civilian casualties if they did. There's no proof just the IDF's word who are not exactly impartial seeing as they are the ones doing all the bombing.