Please restore my faith in humanity..Israel?

[Bakensmile]

I don’t view Hamas as humans, they are pure evil.

However I am astonished at the atrocities Israel are committing and getting away with, I want to believe they are good and just defending themselves but it’s getting harder to do that. I have some questions if anyone could answer, I would be grateful. Before this gets deleted as that’s probably inevitable as mumsnet doesn’t like anyone questioning Israel.

Over 1,000 children have been killed since this all began. Why are Palestinian children’s lives not viewed as important as Israelis?

To the people who say Israel need to destroy Hamas. If Hamas had underground tunnels within Israel. Underneath Israeli homes, hospitals. Would you support the dropping of bombs and view the killing of innocent Israeli civilians as collateral damage and an unavoidable tragedy? Or do you think Israel, who has arguably the most efficient intelligence in the world, would find another way to obliterate them?

The UK and US wrongfully invaded Iraq killing thousands of civilians, some members of the army were raping women and in one case burnt a child alive. If at that time, Iraq had decided to bomb the UK killing thousands of civilians as a way to defend themselves, would you also support that?

The most recent tragedy last night at the hospital. Israel immediately took responsibility and were quite proud they had ‘killed terrorists’. They then deleted this tweet and backtracked saying it was Hamas, releasing audio between two members as ‘proof’.

How can they intercept phone calls between terrorists but failed to see the initial attack and massacre of innocent israelis coming? How is this considered as proof? The two people talking could be anyone.

Why would they claim responsibility if it was nothing to do with them?

What are the chances that a rocket misfires and just happens to land on a hospital that was supposed to be keeping hundreds of Palestinians safe?

Nope, the UN agreed definition is:

"Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them"

People are tribal and will use any of the justifications listed in that definition to excuse acts of terror and violence against civilians.

Sorry!

Oh, I absolutely know. But I don't believe for one moment that this op is a wide-eyed worried citizen desperately trying to believe that Israel are good, I believe they are an anti-Semite. I am glad you've pointed out the lack of support by the Israeli people for the Israeli government though, I think a lot more should be made of that actually (especially when you compare it to the support Hamas receives from the Palestinians).

You mean the murder that has been widely reported on the BBC, ITV and all the mainstream press? Which is being looked at by counter terrorism but not yet confirmed as terror related rather than a "regular" act of mindless violence?

That will be why I haven't heard about it 🙄

If you are going to repeat claims about horrific acts by either side be prepared to substantiate them with credible sources or risk looking stupid or like someone who just enjoys stirring the pot for the lols.

it will be awhile @Bakensmile before Israel restores your faith in humanity. The current waiting time is 75 years.

Yes, I do believe there are certain posters who are deliberately seeking out threads to shut them down. I’ve been on a number of these. They cry “anti-semitism” at criticism of Israel’s policies. They want to shut down any debate. It is quite obvious it is happening on MN. I don’t condone comments specifically aimed at Jewish people, but it seems many will not tolerate any criticism of Israel and jump in the AS bandwagon. It’s ridiculous.

@Bloomingmagnolia , you have spectacularly missed my point. I can’t decide whether that's deliberate or not.

Israel needs to be held to the same standards - not higher, nor lower - of any state. Collective punishment of a civilian population is a war crime. Starving civilians of food and drinking water is a war crime. And frankly, the idea that this method will somehow solve the problem of extremists carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel is insane: the more impoverished and destroyed their home becomes and the bleaker their prospects, the easier target the youth are for radicalisation.

@Bloomingmagnolia
Yeah the same has been happening for about 2 decades now with debate shutdown and accusations of "islamophobia". Welcome to the party!

You first claimed that there are 'organised groups deliberately planted on here to shut down debate.'

When called out on it you changed that to 'certain posters who are deliberately seeking out threads to shut them down'.

Those are not the same claims you know. Why did you change it?

The UN published a report declaring Israel as an apartheid state over a year ago:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-year-occupation-palestinian-territory-apartheid-un-human-rights

The UN warned of a “mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians” 4 days ago:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/un-expert-warns-new-instance-mass-ethnic-cleansing-palestinians-calls

Stop reporting posts that are telling the truth.

Zap

Not everyone accepts the UN as either an authority or arbiter of truth. You must know that.

What debate? The only debate is happening between the posters who really know their stuff. @Pollyputhekettleon being one. The rest is just emotive posturing, with defamatory posts. Look at the heading of the hospital bombing thread last night. The OP went in all guns blazing and others followed.

Just as well Israel owes nothing to @Bakensmile then.

25milesfromhome
Do you genuinely believe that one country should be exempt from people questioning any lobbying and pressure that place on organisations?

I was on a royal family thread this week and people have been talking about the soft power and influence of the royal family, how they sway journalistic stories and reporting. That's a reasonable thing to discuss, surely?

A while ago there was a spell of threads deleted about a certain family in the public eye. People questioned that and suggested that pressure was placed on Mumsnet. Also reasonable to consider?

There's been deletions and lobby/activist based reporting of posters and threads on other social issues on here, and posters have discussed the role of the lobbyists and pressure. I'm sure you'd probably agree that's also reasonable discussion?

But if anyone mentions that the Israeli government and groups in favour of the IDF's military actions might try to lobby or influence and get their message across, they're not allowed to? Anyone who does is antisemitic, even if exploring other governments and lobby groups doing the same thing is acceptable.

”The [UN]’s objectives, as defined by its charter, include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development, and upholding international law.”

Go figure that someone staunchly pro- the current Israeli government, along with their litany of war crimes/contraventions of international law, doesn’t see the UN as authoritative.

But hey, extremists are gonna extremism.

Here is news for you:

Whatever your views, Hamas are human. Fact.

They might be evil, but that reflects the fact that a significant number of humans are evil. In any conflict you will probably find evil on both sides.

The rocket was from Hamas it’s been proven . Israel has not refused to aknowledge any targets before so if they did it they would admit it .
I think you need to realise there isn’t a Hamas as a army , Hamas is part of the population , Hamas will tell their families to stay even where warned to leave so they are seen as martyrs . Being a martyr is something some accept as part if life , it’s part of their jihadists view of life . That’s why eradicating Hamas is almost impossible , it’s an ideology that’s used parts of Islam to their benefit.
I never quite grasped this unlit a Palestinian friend told me this . In her words “ they won’t leave because they are told to stay and they will stay with their children knowing the next rocket can hit them “ , Hamas has control .
Hi estou the only way to end Hamas is giving control to an outside source like UN and educate young minds to think away from jihadism and martyrdom.

Exactly. Becoming a martyr (their word) is aspirational in their eyes.

How can you even begin to attempt diplomacy with such deluded backward believers.

I never really know what to say to people who, in 2023, could quote the UN's charter and consider that some kind of evidence that they should be treated as some kind of authority, moral or otherwise. I get just as baffled about people who talk about international law as if it's somehow in the same category as national law, or even EU law.

I mean, from the pro-Palestinian side, you're presumably aware that the US generally vetoes resolutions against Israel, right? You know that Russia was, and China, Kuwait and Indonesia still are, on the UN Human Rights Council? You know that something like 45 countries (most if not all UN members) have signed the 1990 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam?

@LolaSmiles I honestly don’t know how many more times and ways it can be explained it is not antisemitic to criticize the actions of the Israeli government, the IDF and the treatment of the Palestinians.
What is antisemitic is the use of antisemitic tropes, language, misinformation, historical revisionism, Holocaust inversion, “ I’m not antisemitic, I’m just anti-Zionist!”, (co-opting a specifically Jewish concept and term with a specific meaning and redefining and using it according your own ideology and values is incredibly racist) and tokenizing Jews to do it, which is on full display on every single I/P thread.

The UK media were seriously irresponsible last night. They allowed a lie to take over the narrative without even stopping to question the consequences. Now they are backtracking, not just because of the evidence provided by the IDF, but upon the analysis of the footage from their own experts. Last night they were saying Hamas or Islamic Jihad didn't have the ordnance to create such a massive explosion, now they are saying the evidence shows the explosion wasn't that big. People are going to be killed because of this misinformation.

Truth is going to be a crucial issue in this war and journalists need to be more questioning. I keep seeing reporters from all channels parroting information from Hamas without even querying its validity. Remember, a Hamas spokesman told Channel 4 News that Hamas did not kill any civilians in Israel on October 7th. I don't know who said this originally but if Person A tells you the sun is shining and Person B tells you it's raining, the job of a journalist isn't to report what both people said, it's to look out of the window and find out what's actually happening.

Maybe they should use the police’s working definition. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/a-definition-of-antisemitism

its clear then that many of he comments on these threads are anti semitic.

That’s nothing to what the first minister of Scotland did this morning holding fast to blaming Israel even as Israel were saying it wasn’t them. He was more interested in talking about his wife’s Palestinian family than finding the truth.