For people who say I stand with Israel

[sprinklesprinkle]

What does that mean to you? Especially for Jewish people who are happy to answer.

I know what Free Palestine means - it has always meant freedom for Palestinians, peace, basic human rights such as water, the right to life essentially.

I Stand with Israel - what exactly does this mean?

I am genuinely not being 'goady" to use a MN word but I want to learn & understand. I know many will say not to have Israelis attacked at a festival or for the hostages to be released but what is the long term goal for those that support what the Israeli government is doing. What do you want for Palestinians?

Hamas being wiped out would not mean Peace in the Middle East.

i would be interested in the intelligence services files and see what they truly say, rather than any media outlet. for the entire conflict.

Okay ... let us assume this as a given for a second!

Then how do you suggest we deal with the fact that there are, literally, radical armed factions hell-bent on ethnically cleansing Palestinians - even though the people in question would argue that there "are no Palestinians", a deeply and disturbingly racist position to take - and that they are not only hypothetically taking that stance but displacing villagers in the West Bank as we are all looking to Gaza? As in: this very hour?

If it is unacceptable for Israelis to have to live with the risk of this (and, I should like to assume that as a given for anyone - then what is your suggestion for how we stop it being lived reality for Palestinians?

But what would reasonable force look like? You are under law allowed to kill your attacker if that's the only way to save yourself.

Israel is a state that has a right to exist. Hamas has made it clear its only goal is the complete destruction of Israel and that it will torture and murder its citizens and never stop. That only leaves the complete destruction of Hamas as your option. That leaves making those who would destroy you so scared of you they never even try.

I think its five times a two state solution has been agreed to by Israel but Hamas has always refused. And now its done this. Israel is not the blockage to peace in the ME. Hamas is.

Its very easy to sit in an armchair and condemn Israel.

Its very easy to say, ' well this response will just lead to more conflict'
Its a lot harder to say exactly what Israel, (because people ONLY seem to be talking about what Israel should do, Palestine) should do to stop the conflict. What is that exactly? No-one has ever found the answer to that, have they? And the reasons for that is because Hamas refuse to agree a settlement as their only goal is the complete destruction of Israel. And what option does that leave for Israel after a racist massacre of its citizens?

Warning: what follows is awful. Stop reading now if you will find it too disturbing.

https://themedialine.org/top-stories/evidence-on-display-at-israels-forensic-pathology-center-confirms-hamas-atrocities/

Read this for what Hamas have done. Here are some extracts
During the initial press conference, the forensics team showed images from their investigations. Among the images were those of charred hands with marks that revealed where the victims’ hands were bound behind their backs with metal wire before being burned alive

Two spinal cords—one belonging to an adult, one to someone young—a parent and child bound together by metal wires in a final embrace before being set alight

And you hear the stories—that behind their charred bodies, something terrible happened—it’s very difficult. I’ve seen many things in my 31-year career, but the magnitude and the cruelty [here] is terrible,” Kugel added

I don't think anyone believes it would. It wasn't peaceful before 1948 and it's not been peaceful since.

Free Palestine doesn’t mean what you think it does I’m afraid. What do you think Palestine needs to be free from? For many (including Hamas) it means the destruction of the Jewish state and the murder of all Jews . Same as “from the river to the sea”. If you don’t know that, you need to learn your history. Who is Palestine being freed from? They don’t mean Hamas or any of the other assorted terrorist groups.

I stand with israel (as a Jew). What I mean by that is I stand with Israel’s right to peace and security and to defend itself against these attacks.

Israel didn’t do this - this hospital explosion was caused by a rocket from Gaza - Hamas or another group. It’s also unlikely 500 were killed. Spreading misinformation doesn’t help anyone.

Exactly this

The Guardian has said reports of antisemitic hate crimes in London are up 1,350 per cent. Who are Jews supposed to centre when they read that information? The antisemites?

'We' won't be dealing with anything of the kind because we have no influence whatsoever on the situation. In any event, the time to prevent everything happening now was either during the centuries of religious supremacism known as dhimmitude, or when the two state solution was offered in the 1920s and 30's. Had the Arabs allowed the Jews their state at that time, they could have legally removed all Jews from the Arab state and permanently prohibited the immigration of any more, ever. Problem solved.

Oh, come on now!

We all know the biblical God is, essentially, the most murderous entity ever to have existed (including that one time he supposedly committed genocide against every human alive - bar one family). Some will say that is metaphor, others will deal differently with it.

But the Bible is hardly history! This is utterly ridiculous!

Really? So whose nation is it?

In about the same vein, you could argue that - had we not had the extraordinarily stupid (in hindsight) idea of inventing the concept of nationalism back in the Romanticist era, not only would we not be looking at this particular problem - we could have also averted myriad other bloody conflicts. We might just have averted both world wars, actually! Lots of problems solved!

But - unless you have invented a time machine, in which case: congrats on your Nobel! - that is hardly an answer to the question!

Rather than going back to Abraham why not look at 'historically' as 1948!
Israel is a sovereign legal state from then!
We are not all religious fanatics. Israel is a secular Jewish state (with 20% Arab population).

You obviously know better than American intelligence.

It's not like America is biased in favour of Israel at all.

That was basically my point, too! Thanks!

To be fair, I think it absolutely isrelevant to possibly go back a bit further than that! The birth of Zionism within the context of the nascent concept of nationalism, Russian pogroms, the Shoa, WWI, the fall of the Ottoman empire, British colonialism ... all seem "fair game" to me in terms of relevant historical context. All pre 1948.

But the reasonable standard really ought to be: "if you would not use it in a discussion of NI, you probably should not on I/P". I mean: more than happy to be given a compelling argument for how Roman occupation meaningfully contributed to the Troubles, but ... that would have to be some argument!

I stand with Israel because 2500 years ago they were subject to the first round of persecution and exile (by the Babylonians) when the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were targeted for several reasons, possibly largely because of the strategic value of their lands.

Since then, almost invariably every culture who has come into contact with them, persecution, exile and genocide has almost always followed them.

Successive religions of Christianity (which thanks to Paul moved away from being a Jewish sect) and more recently Islam has appropriated the religion and its sacred areas in an attempt to usurp their power and literally build over them. Lo and behold the ancient Jewish site became sacred to the appropriating religions in an attempt to mark their territory as a direct challenge to Jewish History.

After the Holocaust enough was enough they needed a land where no other culture should have been able to touch them. Where they could break the chain of exile, persecution and genocide. With antisemitism on the rise ridiculous conspiracy theories whipping up hatred and distrust the need for Israel has never been more necessary.

Yet even in this safe haven they have been surrounded by nations which does not recognise their historic right to be there, the humanitarian need for them to be there. They have to hold at bay terrorist groups who want to destroy them. Terrorist groups backed by surrounding states.

When Hamas invaded Israel and committed acts of unspeakable terror, who can really blame them for fighting back with all their might, if they would. have been on a position to do that at the start of the Nazi threat who knows how things would have worked out.

I'm not Jewish but I 100% understand their reaction, I 100% understand the need for Israel, I 100% see why their lands should replicate as close as possible to their historic lands from which they were first exiled.

Of course no one wants to see anyone suffer and die, but this is the fault of Hamas it is an inevitable consequence of their terrorism. Egypt could be taking refugees(as could all the Anti Israel countries through Egypt) but they are willing to see women and children die.

So I 100% stand with Israel and all Jewish people.

If you want to discuss the effect of Roman occupation on Ireland you really ought to step back from anything to do with history. 🤦‍♀️

Because that’s not where the history starts, I know you would desperately desperately like it to but that’s not the position.

I think you may have missed some of the sarcasm and hyperbole there!

For the record: I'm definitely NOT claiming you can somehow explain 1970s Belfast with relations between Rome and the Iceni or anything. On the contrary!

What I am saying is: it's not only unreasonable but also utterly pointless to try and frame modern political issues in the terms of ancient history.

Also: totally pointless and impractical! We can't even determine how to interpret a biologically female skeleton with arms in a Viking grave! How on earth do you propose we get a differentiated enough sense of ancient history to actually make it usefully applicable to modern day questions?

By the way, I think @petuniasandpetals and I both agree with this - and we are not taking the same view of the overall conflict.

To those quibbling over whether 'standing with Israel' means defending any and all retaliatory action...

Here's what you should be willing to defend. Whatever you feel the British government should do if Ireland/France's theoretical terrorist rulers invaded the UK and murdered 1300 of our citizens in the most brutal way imaginable and took 200 more as hostages, including babies and children...

Whatever you would want your government to do in that scenario, that's what you should defend Israel's right to do. Of course, there would be limits to what you would defend in that scenario hopefully and I imagine most of us would be against deliberate targeting of civilians, for example. But 'nothing/peace/ceasefire' is 100% not what you would be calling for your government to do, so if you're calling for Israel to do something different or less, I'd take a long hard look at why that is.

Even if they do think that, I wouldn't even call it anti-Semitism unless they only believe that should happen to them because they are Jewish. Not that it's OK, but said person could believe that those actions are proportional for any state in Palestine's position, with no favour held to a particular race or religion. They may believe it would be proportional for, say, Armenians to have taken such actions against Turks, what -ism would it be then?

And why are those accusing Israel of war crimes, not condemning Hamas for war crimes in their recent ttacks?. Why are those accusing Israel of disproportionality not accusing Hamas and their attacks of being disproportionate in these attacks? We all know that the disgusting answer to that is because they think the torture, rape and murder of Jewish men, women and children was proportionate. And there is no word for that other than deep anti-semitism.

Tried to reply to this, for some reason it didn't work.

Actually I have to disagree. History has a cumulative effect on a culture. Maybe look at the beginning of Jewish persecution and exile to understand the millennia that followed.

Although I have to agree Roman occupation will have had little impact on Ireland 😂😂😂