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's a war. Israel just want the terrorists to release the hostages. Then normal life can resume.

Given this definition, and see where it comes from, I'd say the Russians are very much doing it to the Ukrainians, given their kidnapping of children, and it fits what is being done to the Palestinians also.

www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/learn-about-genocide-and-other-mass-atrocities/what-is-genocide

Surprised at home many anti-semites there are on mumsnet! I thought there was a better calibre of person here.

Thank you, it's up to Hamas to end the war by releasing the hostages they took a year ago on October 7th.

Stop talking about "Jewish leaders". The current government of Israel does not represent the views of all jewish people. It is a right wing government who treats secular Jews in Israel as badly as Arabs.

Do you think that Israel should be considered a rogue state, like NK, then?

How much news coverage in the UK is dedicated to defending what they and Russia do? That's not because we don't think they need defending; it's because we see them as totally indefensible in the first place, as a given.

Personally, I'm not pro or against either side: I'm just appalled at the many innocent people, especially children, who have died wholly needlessly.

I felt exactly the same - and still do - about all of the innocent Iraqis who died at this country's hands.

And yes, I do believe that the UK should be amongst the western developed countries that are expected to have much higher standards - much higher than we often actually seem to have.

And yet where do you see people talking about the Russian genocide of Ukraine?

This is the double standard that is always applied to Israel.

Why? I think we all know.

UN Special Rapporteur report on Gaza provides crucial evidence that must spur international action to prevent genocide - Amnesty International

and for those making comparisons with the Third Reich it's spelt Nuremberg
(or in German Nürnberg).

I think I’ve made my stance clear, no need for straw man arguments here.

I agree that Israel has the right to defend its citizens against terrorism and a genocidal attempt to end its existence. And if Hamas hides their missile launchers in hospitals and nurseries, and then attacks Israel with them, they are solely to blame for the results.

Good point, none of my Jewish friends support the current government and haven't done for years.

Wow

You've just made a sweeping generalisation about millions of people worldwide who have continually taken to the streets for a full year to protest the breakdown of human rights and international low, whether you are Zionist or otherwise there can be absolutely no denying Israel has broken international law and warfare agreements countless times and to the point of utter barbarism, there is no justification for that, none, Israel has a right of defence but not a right to break whatever rules it likes which it has done and yes, be definition many times now to the point of genocide. You are calling all people who believe this fanatical, do you not think you come across just a little bit narrow minded yourself making assumptions about billions of people and thinking you know their beliefs and behaviours? Anyone supporting Palestine is being vilified and discredited, but anyone not supporting Palestine is supporting the end of international diplomacy and security. How can we ever stop anyone now that we've let Israel do this. It's done, we are all Palestines now at the mercy of whoever wants to execute us

Ok by your logic, if a shooter goes into a school and holds the entire school hostage, it's fine to blow up the school with everyone in it to deal with problem?
what is happening in Gaza can no longer be characterised as self defence, come on.

What it shows that actually on MN there are just sensible people. Any criticisms of Israel's actions does not make one an anti semite. What of the Jews who also are opposed to the genocide in Gaza. Are they too antisemetic?

Is this a joke? Hamas has offered to release hostages several times. Israel have refused and are instead using them as an excuse to continue massacring Palestinians. Families of living hostages are literally protesting against their own government. Families of killed hostages have refused to meet with Netanyahu as they hold him responsible. I'm literally flabbergasted that anyone can say that Israel just want the hostages back. They don't. They're using them as an excuse to wipe out the Palestinians.

Are they really hiding rocket launchers in nurseries? Really??

That's as mad as the old eating babies trope that no one believes in. Because it's not true.

It's fully possible to be not antisemitic, while still abhorring what the Israeli government is doing.

It's a legal argument, not a straw man argument

But thank you for confirming you approve of war crimes

@Strangerthanfictions the fanaticism is clearly on show in this thread. Don't agree with me that it's a genocide - you must be a morally bankrupt awful far right person - you couldn't possibly be a person with other points of view and arguments!

Millions of MC urban people with luxury beliefs maybe!

Because some of the actions sanctioned by the state of Israel are not only morally dubious, but potentially criminal.

And many, many Israelis living there right now are concerned they are watching their country descend into racism and fascism. That this war is dividing Israel, not uniting it.

Opinion | Attacks on Arab citizens of Israel are not news
Hanin Majadli Oct 06, 2024 01:43 PM
(Hanin Majadli, a Palestinian Israeli citizen, is journalist, publicist and editor at Haaretz.)
The case of the Arab girl attending a Be'er Sheva middle school who dared to say that "young children are suffering from hunger and dying in Gaza" - after which her classmates began attacking her, accusing her of supporting Hamas, cursing her and singing "may your village burn" - has gone virtually uncovered by the Israeli media.
So have the facts that the school suspended her, that the Education Ministry supported the suspension, that other students' parents demanded on WhatsApp groups that she be expelled and that they even said her entire family should be stripped of citizenship.
Also of little interest is the fact that the girl's father decided that his other daughter should also stay home, lest she be harassed. And according to him, other Arab students at the school did the same. None of this is news; it's not a story.
To this could be added countless other stories of Palestinian citizens who have gotten a good taste of the violence of theJewish supremacistconsciousness, especially since last October 7. Arab doctors have been attacked in hospitals, Arab students have been attacked at college, Arab employees have been beaten up at restaurants and cafes, and the list goes on and on.
”In practice, Palestinian citizens of Israel are living under a reign of Jewish terror, both psychological and physical. And no, there isn't any more delicate way to put it. This madness has been normalized by both the public and Israeli institutions.
When a friend abroad told me this week that her daughters' school has a "heritage day," I thought about the heritage being taught in Israel - that Arab villages should burn, that a good Arab is a dead Arab, that there's no such thing as the Palestinian people and, new on the shelves, that if you're an Arab girl attending a Jewish school, you would be very wise to hide this, lest the Chosen People's children harass you.
I can just imagine how Israelis would respond if something similar had happened to a Jewish girl in Paris, Berlin or New York. The angry reactions would have delved at length into antisemitism, and the story would have led the Israeli news broadcasts, even if it happened overseas.
But multi-system racism and fascism against an Arab girl? That's not a story that opens news broadcasts, because the growing fascism of Israeli society has become the bon ton, to such an extent that it's hard to identify it. It's like oxygen. And when it's aimed at Palestinian Arabs, it's met with no more than derision and some tut-tutting. At most, someone will talk about "worrying processes," "bestialization" or the fact that "the conversation is becoming more extreme."
But how long can we keep talking around the issue? Sorry, guys, but this is full-blown fascism. Consequently, it's urgent to start a process of deradicalization, with no involvement from Education Minister Yoav Kisch.
We need to stop closing our eyes to the magnitude of the popular support of everyone involved - adults and children, individuals and institutional actors such as educators, municipal officials and national officials - and to understand that they are all infected with fascism and that it's feeding on itself. And yes, the slaughter in the Gaza Strip is accelerating it, or has accelerated it.
Once upon a time, the few righteous people who exist here would say that in a properly run democratic country, things like this must not happen, so the Education Ministry must intervene and everyone involved must be called to account. But there's no point in demanding things like that in a country that is no longer properly run and not really democratic, and where the Education Ministry is part of the problem, not the solution.
And you have no one to blame but yourselves. Maybe you didn't notice it, but every time you insisted on the state being both Jewish and democratic and fiercely defended this oxymoron, you effectively opted for racism and fascism.

I think you absolutely should end this so-called "friendship". Your university colleague may not know you call everyone who disagrees with you a "Hamas apologist" - I'm sure she'd be deeply offended by this level of extremism and not want anything further to do with you, so you'd be doing her a favour.

"A member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, speaking Monday at a meeting of lawmakers, justified the rape and abuse of Palestinian prisoners, shouting angrily at colleagues questioning the alleged behavior that anything was legitimate to do to "terrorists" in custody.

Lawmaker Hanoch Milwidsky was asked as he defended the alleged abuse whether it was legitimate, "to insert a stick into a person's rectum?"

"Yes!" he shouted in reply to his fellow parliamentarian. "If he is a Nukhba [Hamas militant], everything is legitimate to do! Everything!"

This is the government you're defending.

This is the government you're claiming aren't committing a genocide.

I can't work out if people like you are full of hatred or ignorance.

Yes do your friend a favor and definitely distance yourself from her OP.

Oh bless you. Do you really think the Israeli government give a shit about the hostages? They're literally blowing them up.
there have been several hostage deals on the table, all of which have folded. Why? Because the government doesn't care. All it cares about is wiping out Gaza. And now Lebanon.

Where do you get your news, Al Jazeera?