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?

It never ceases to surprise me how many people think that Israel is a peaceful state being attacked by it’s bad neighbours not one of them looking into what Israel has been doing since it’s inception.

There's a lot of wide eyed incredulity that anyone would attack Israel.

@Hididi11 yes, the number one reason why the situation in Gaza is not a genocide is that assisting in a genocide is also a crime under the convention and therefore Biden, Sunak, Starmer and dozens of others would be liable to prosecution.

It’s also allowed for IDF to use Palestinians as human shields apparently

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/14/israeli-forces-in-gaza-use-civilians-as-human-shields-against-possible-booby-traps

A number of our politicians should be tried on war crimes. Think back to Tony Bliar the warmongerer.

I would never make a new friendship with someone who believes the lie that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

I rip down pro-Hamas/Palestine stickers whenever I see them.

However I do have an old Jewish friend who’s been involved with anti-Zionist causes and Jewish socialist groups for decades He’s the kind of person who will deny to his last breath the proven Labour Party/Corbynista anti-semitism.

I just think of him as an old fool, stuck in his pattern of thinking and unable to accept the failure of the Bundist philosophy he’s followed all his life. He goes on the hate marches with people who’d gladly chop his head off.

After October 7th I planned to lose touch with him. But his temperament is calm and he’s happy to debate (Hampstead liberal!) so we do still sometimes meet up and talk.

I did though cut off a non-Jewish friend of mine who I’ve known 25 years. He’s an Italian guy who’s spent his life around electronic music and going clubbing around the world.

Despite this, his impulse days after October 7th and the Nova festival massacre was to spew hatred against Israel who apparently had it coming.

I was and am so disgusted at him. I haven’t seen him since that phone call and don’t plan to again.

Idk why but this really gives me narcissism vibes.

What sort of person rips down Palestinian stickers? Someone who is just as bad as those who rip down hostage posters. Some people are so full of hate they can't bare to see any support for the Palestinians.

Wow
I would not be your friend at all
Absolutely ridiculous that you forget what the Palestinian Christians have been put through.

Let me remind you
Thousand of Christians lived in Palestine
In the 1948 nakba the Israeli forces forced them out of their villages
They left and unable to return as their land was now Israel
Then the Christians were not allowed citizenship when they returned but at the same time any person who was Jewish across the world was granted immediate citizenship.
The Christian churches attacked.
The Christians in Bethlehem attacked.
By the israeli.
I wonder if anyone celebrated Christmas last year. I certainly did not as the priest of Bethlehem cancelled Christmas himself due to the dire state of affairs.
How can we celebrate know that the birth place of Christianity is being attacked.
Oh
And
They Christians have been persecuted ever since.
The ones is Gaza killed
So much asbestos in the Gaza air that the air has become carcinogenic.
19000 children killed in Gaza in a year.
And over a million killed by Israel over last 70.

Tune in the series... Not just the last episode and maybe you will realise. .
Every major international human rights organisation has called what Israel is doing a genocide.

Actually the Israel GOVERNMENT. The Israel people suffer too and are not responsible. IT IS GOVERNMENT!
My Jewish friends make this clear. They attend the protests for a ceasefire and to stop the genocide.

What if I decided that Anglo-Saxon paganism started in London I was treated wrongly over 1000 years ago and have no real home.
What if then say all the non-anglosaxon pagans have to move out. Or live by my laws?

If pro-Palestine stickers said “Hamas must surrender! Hamas must free the hostages!” Then maybe I wouldn’t rip them down.

Since they don’t ever say that, it’s fair to conclude then they’re on the side of an outlawed terrorist group and/or Far Left groups.

If they think Palestine can be “free” without Hamas being defeated, and since Hamas want the destruction of Israel, then these stickers are hateful and implicitly support terror.

So yes absolutely they should be ripped down.

Yes - it was later proven that there were no WMD in Iraq. All that destruction for nothing but God apparently spoke to
George Bush jnr and Tony Blair!

"With you whatever."

This is truly back to front logic - the US and UK governments employ a veritable army of international human rights lawyers to examine current liability for genocide accusations and craft perfectly worded statements disavowing any possible involvement

The US has been accused of complicity in genocide before - and the sky didn't fall in not least because of their domination/hobbling of the international courts

By your logic
What if hamas was in tel aviv
What would you do

The UK government. Lol.
Tony should be arrested for war crimes for a start!

This is not fair to conclude at all. Bonkers!

@VideoKilledRadioStar I can't follow your logic either. People object to the immense suffering of innocent people, particularly children in Gaza, I saw a sticker saying '14, 000 children. Peace now.' Is that offensive to you?

I suspect people feel outraged as the UK government supports the Israeli government whose IDF is killing thousands of Palestinians right now. If our government publicly announced support for Hamas, North Korea or Russia, I imagine people would show moral outrage then too.

My stance on this are both sides are awful. I lost all sympathy for Hamas after what they did last year, I think the Israeli government are guilty of war crimes. My sympathy is for the women and children who are caught up in this mess, the ones who've been murdered and tortured and raped, or blown up, or cowering in their homes or bomb shelters wondering if they'll live to see another morning.

Thank you, that was the issue at hand, but it's got rather out of hand.

Support for Hamas in Gaza increased after October 7 last year.

Palestinian poll shows a rise in Hamas support and close to 90% | AP News

The Christians in Palestine were free over a hundred years ago before the naqba and all the other wars that took place.
The Christians in Palestine were forced out their homes by Israel in 1948
I am taking about whole villages forced out in 1948
Killed and nowhere to turn
There was no hamas in 1948.
The war against the Christians in Palestine started when their land got stolen to create Israel.

I do not blame Israeli people. A close friend of my whose grandparents went to Israel from Europe in the 1960s when promised a land of peace . He wasn't slow. He quickly realised he had peace as others were thrown out the villages. He was given a house where he lived for a month before a Christian mother with three young children said her husbands ancestors had lived in the house for over 500 years. He saw the state she was in. He quickly realised that it was a stolen home he was living in. He moved back to Europe and gave the home back. He said " if peace for me means seeing another family thrown out of their home then that is not peace"

May God bless all those who do the right thing.

Thanks for the article. A couple of things, how was a poll conducted? Who conducted the poll?

I’m not surprised at this at all. It’s like the Irish republican in army in Belfast got massive support during the conflict because Catholic people had no one else to turn to when innocent catholics were being attacked.

What a completely sane question
At least you have sense.
It's funny
Because in a country that is rubble with air filled of carcinogenic asbestos...I wonder how someone managed to conduct a poll.
Was it at the hospitals that aren't there.
Or was it at the churches that no longer exist.
Maybe at the refugee centre that got set fire too.
Must be the old fashioned way... Door to door
Oops forgot to add there are NO DOORS because there are no house.
Would also Love to know how the poll was conducted.