Does anyone else feel like this about Gaza/Israel?

[Rattanlamp]

I know it sounds awful, but I’m desperate for a break from Gaza. I feel like we’ve had 2 straight years of hearing about absolutely nothing else. It feels like you can’t switch the radio on, or open Facebook, or even pop to the shop without hearing chants of PALESTINE and having flags waved in your face. It’s been absolutely relentless, and wildly disproportionate compared to other conflicts and atrocities around the world.

Of course it’s hideous that so many civilians have been killed, in particular children. But it feels like Palestine truly believes it is the only population who suffered during the 1940s and is the only country to ever lose territory or be reshaped by global events. I feel like everyone else adjusted to their new normal, for the sake of peace, while Palestinians just continue what seems like an infinite grudge which is then met with harsher repressions by Israel as they have to defend themselves.

It’s utterly exhausting the globe and I have zero hope they will now smell the coffee and take the opportunity to kick Hamas out because ultimately they don’t want peace. Hamas did not drop out of the sky, they and Oct 7 had high support until they started losing, and I think it’s very unlikely they will ever be willing to move on from past events.

AIBU to think we now just need to leave them to it for the sake of all involved?

Poor you. Must be so difficult. Thoughts and prayers to you.

I suppose the good news is that now that Palestinians are being killed by Hamas and other Palestinians - apparently there were hundreds of deaths yesterday as they scramble to fill the power vacuum - and not Israel, we won't be hearing any more about it

Question, if this thread was flipped on its head, and I’d posted all the same comments including your OP as you but replaced ‘Palestine’ with ‘Israel’ - what would your reaction be? (That’s a rhetorical question - we both know you’d be, rightly, outraged).

It’s a major news story but easily avoided. Just don’t read those bits of the newspaper and switch over if it’s on the news, or leave the room, or make a cup of tea, or stare at your phone and don’t engage with it.

This was a masterful way to hand someone's arse to them. ❤

I find it odd too, but mostly that the only time we hear about these other atrocities is from someone who doesn't give a fuck about those genocides either, it's just a handy way to deflect from the suffering in Gaza.

Have a look at what's happening in Sudan. The statistics are horrific. Or the DRC where women and children are routinely raped. Or what's happening to women in Afghanistan, or the horrors in Nigeria, or...
Sadly, there is always conflict, always terror, murder, always atrocities. I don't want to get blase about any of it and I like to keep myself informed, but it does sometimes get a bit much.
So I agree, maybe have a break from the details and hope for a lasting peace 🙏

Well said. The whataboutery and 'look over there' is nauseating.

It is more relevant to the U.K. than some other wars - Israel is an ally, we supported their war, then there were issues raised about it, then there is the difficult situation of Hamas being proscribed in the U.K. and the Palestinian marches which gives rise to discussion- we also have relatives/friends in the U.K. of those in Israel and Gaza.
These things either aren’t a factor at all in Nigeria and other places, or less of one.
It is relentless though - even if rightly so - I try to have a day or number of hours every day where I don’t look at the news.
I am actually particularly interested in standing upto racism, and am somewhat active in that but even with that interest I learned I can’t continuously watch/read about the stuff that sends my blood pressure up! So I mark out times to be involved and times to leave it and catch up later.
I would recommend the same for all emotive or difficult subject matter tbh.

Even if you don't listen to or read anything else on this subject, please do listen to the rest is politics leading interview with james elder, a spokesperson for unicef.

It's harrowing but it explains a little bit the difference between the situation in gaza and the other conflicts around the world.

Edited to say that not that I think there shouldn't be more reporting on the other atrocities being carried out around the world. They absolutely do deserve more air time than they are getting now.

And the only time you hear about Palestinians being murdered is when Israel is involved and not Hamas. What does that suggest?

Yes I have been reading about the events in Sudan but the reporting is sadly limited as the press is saturated with Gaza. There are very infrequent proper updates and zero commentary. Death tolls are given at very spaced out intervals which isn’t helping and there is next to no political concern.

Yet I’m still here, arse in hand. And about half of people agree with me.

It would suggest that, given we’re a long standing ally of Israel and that they’re a respected country, we expected better from them than genocide? And that we don’t necessarily expect good behaviour from terrorists? Dunno, just throwing ideas around.

They’re utterly allergic to hearing a word against Hamas. Who brought this whole nightmare down on their heads. I follow a very astute Muslim commentator who is disgusted with the white Westerners cheering on more conflict and agitating because their egos are so heavily tied into standing on the ‘free Palestine’ podium.

You know where I got my information from? Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh. She visits her charities there and has been speaking about women and girls being victims of sexual violence in war. It was a very, very difficult read indeed. She is doing, perhaps in a small way, good work.
I was able to contribute to a charity which helps support the victims of sexual violence.

Don’t call them terrorists, the marchers will be upon you! They consider them ‘the noble resistance’. In fact merely saying that makes you a sickening Zionist to them.

You should consider yourself very fortunate that your biggest inconvenience are a few protestors in your home town . Imagine how the mothers in Gaza feel watching their children starve to death and being powerless to prevent it or not being able to provide the basic necessities for their children. Or how the Israeli families of the October 7th victims must feel knowing what awful deaths their loved ones endured. Tensions are still going to be high going forward as both sides have endured pain and loss. I really hope and pray they can pave a way to Peace with the ceasefire but it is a fragile situation.

And the mothers in Nigeria and Sudan? Do they not deserve a share of commentary? Or, as I said before, are the only existences now either being Gazan or hearing about nothing but Gaza?

I felt like this about Ukraine too.

It’s a problem in part with the amount of time we spend online, it just means you’re constantly exposed to content and a lot of that is negative.

So we shouldn't point out that the media is unfairly reporting on global events because it will make people realise that the media is unfairly reporting on global events?

I think sometimes we do hear very distressing details yes.I stopped watching the news articles. Couldnt sleep for a week, after that poor man whose wife and baby were killed, while he was held hostage.However a complete news blackout would be unacceptable .The news is just that, world events .some gruesome /some bad /some (very few sadly) /fun or lighthearted .Its a range of subjects .Why not have a break like me for a few weeks . I also sent some aid and a poor young lad got killed at the food point which was upsetting

Today however is big news - the freeing of the remaining living hostages has been completed.

Well what are you doing about it? Why not go and wave a few flags yourself? Write to your MP, feedback to the BBC, start a thread on Mumsnet actually about it.

Because what it looks like is that you don’t actually care about those suffering in Nigeria and Sudan at all. And worse than not caring, you’re using that suffering as a cheap way to belittle the suffering of people in Palestine.

But then you’re the type of person who would start a completely disingenuous thread claiming to be bored of hearing about it, when what you really wanted to talk about how you don’t actually think what’s happening to innocent children in Palestine is that bad really, and probably their own fault somehow …

So when you posted about being ‘desperate from a break’ from Gaza, what you actually meant was that you’re desperate for a break from hearing views you disagree with?

What do you want, an echo chamber? Wall to wall Pro-Israel rhetoric?