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?

Why was Britain ruling Palestine in the 1920s in the first place. Just part British history of country grabbing and throw in a bit of slavery here or there I guess. Britain stopped ruling Palestine in 1947 on the creation of Israel.

Rational discussion would, admittedly, involve Israel stopping committing war crimes, as even the Americans have asked them to.

Yes you should definitely continue to be her friend (assuming she's not using her beliefs as a vehicle for antisemitism). In my opinion too many people live in an echo chamber and stop engaging with people who have different views to them. Nobody benefits from that -!it just leads to further division.

Also for selfish reasons it's good to expose yourself to different viewpoints. It gives you a chance to examine your your own opinions, clarify then and educate yourself a bit. And I mean that for everybody not just people with one specific set of beliefs.

It arose from the settlement after the first world war. I don't think the British were particularly keen on the obligation.

You could just look it up, "The mandate was assigned to Britain by the San Remo conference in April 1920, after France's concession in the 1918 Clemenceau–Lloyd George Agreement of the previously agreed "international administration" of Palestine under the Sykes–Picot Agreement."

I don't think she's an antisemite, I think she's a liberal lefty with a full set of liberal lefty values.

I've always thought of myself as a liberal lefty and find myself politically homeless these days as the left seems to have lost its way.

OP has been exposed to different view points on this thread but hasn't been able to shift her stance in any way so unlikely to be able to do so irl. The AIBU has spoken clearly and yet her views remain the same as the start of the thread.

By people like you I mean openly islamophobic as stated in your previous deleted post.

Are posters not aware of the collaboration between Hitler's regime and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem? Perhaps they are not aware of the views of the current Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, "The Hour will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call: O Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."

I just wonder because so many seem to compare current day Israel to Hitler's Germany, which is a vile and offensive comparison and ignores the actual affinity between Nazis and Palestinians when it comes to hatred of the Jewish people.

I don't think there has been much support for Israel's occupation on the left in this country for at least fifty years. Though there have been periods when the subject was not top of the agenda.

I don't believe my fear of Islam is irrational.

Would you live in Iran, where women are under house arrest and forbidden from speaking or laughing in public?

That's Afghanistan.

Iran used to be a fairly liberal democracy until the Americans installed the Shah, leading to the Islamic revolution. Hopefully it will be again some day, though Trump's unilateral destruction of rapprochement hasn't helped.

At least fifty years? So basically, since the creation of a Jewish homeland in the place where Judaism began and where Jews have always lived?

Since Israel committed ethnic cleansing and hasn't allowed those displaced people back home. Since Israel occupied their land and formed an Apartheid state and now, since Israel are again trying to commit ethnic cleansing and are acting with genocidal intent.

As a former 'lefty' you'd know that.

@Oodiks what's wrong with being a liberal lefty with liberal lefty values?

I used to be one too in my youth but I don't think I ever stopped talking to people who weren't left wing. People can hold opposing viewpoints without either person being wrong.

My arithmetic brings me to the 1967 war.

Though I'll admit that things could have gone very differently if the British had decided to bomb Jewish areas in Palestine to eradicate the Jewish terrorists responsible for various atrocities against civilians in 1948. But, of course, for all our faults the British wouldn't have gone about fighting terrorism that way; and in the end the Americans didn't let us carry on fighting terrorism.

I am beginning to think that your 'views' go a lot further than that OP

But you didn’t start a thread about the Afghan refugeees sent back to Afghanistan. You don’t know what else I or indeed anyone else objects to.

No, but I haven’t heard of any protests or marches about this issue, have you?

Oh? Do tell?

Do you know how many Jews used to live in Arab countries? Do you know how many live there now? Look it up, you might learn something.

Another was Israel didn’t want and won.