Scared to be Jewish

[WibbleWobbleFlop]

I am not pro-IDF or pro-Hamas, in fact I am very strongly against both. Netanyahu's government is an ultra-right wing aggressive shitshow and Hamas is an "elected" group of cowardly murdering terrorists. I am horrified for all Israeli and Palestinian civilians. I can't even begin to imagine how those poor innocent people of Gaza are carrying on, nor how the hostages and families are coping. I want nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace side by side in a democratic two-state solution.

I am a secular Jew. I live in the UK. I am supposedly safe, as are my children.

But I don't feel like we will be safe much longer. Hamas wants the annihilation of all Jews, not just the destruction of the state of Israel. It's not about freeing Palestine to them. It is about eliminated an entire ethnicity. My ethnicity.

When Jews were targeted in the Holocaust, it didn't matter if they were religious, Orthodox, or secular. It didn't matter if they were in Poland or Germany or Russia. Jewish blood meant "evil".

Jewish ancestry is traceable. If Hamas gains further popularity in the Middle East (incredibly likely, given their links to Iran and Qatar), there is a real danger for literally every Jew in the world. I am seeing more and more Europeans and Americans leaning so far to the Palestinian side that they want Israel to stop being an accepted state. This gives so much more power to Hamas because any aid sent to Palestine is being spent on weapons and rockets being used against the Jews.

I'm sure I will be told I am overreacting. But I am scared. And I think I have every right to be.

There may have been isolated incidences of hate towards Russians but nothing like the anti semitism of the past few weeks.

And of course Russia launched an aggressive land grab military invasion. Israel is responding to the worst attack on its people since the Holocaust against an enemy who have made it clear they won’t rest until Israel and all its population are exterminated.

Please inform me what my "pro Palestinian" (I think you just mean Palestinian?) flag means.

Russia people getting abuse and feeling threatened was very much reported yes.

In secondary schools like my work place we had to watch out for incidents of hate or harassment.

It isn't only Jews that the government or organisations that deal with hate crimes ask schools to monitor hate issues, provide support and interventions

I absolutely love this estate agent speak. "Prime waterfront land," they should be so grateful!

I sent my only Russian-born employee home from the office to WFH / take some time off to hopefully recover because the treatment he was facing was shocking! Later, I was quite appalled to find only a single one of my colleagues in a management position was willing to phone him and check up on how he was doing. And, yes, I may have threatened a few people with disciplinary action over their behaviour!

The firm cracked down on this sort of thing later - but the first two weeks or so were actually horrific to watch!

I am not even remotely pro-Russian - I was as appalled as everyone else. But I do know that people are not their government.

But, long story short: yes, Russians were facing quite shocking behaviour, including by some people I know (and, frankly, think less of nowadays!).

What they did not have - just to put this into perspective - is a long "tradition" (if one can call it that) of "Anti-Russianism" and intergenerational trauma. In that sense, this is different. Still disgusting, though!

True though

Rabidly racist bullshit!

You may sneer at the description but prime waterfront land was exactly what it was. One of the best things they did after blowing up the water treatment system was to use the pipes to fashion rockets to fire rockets at Israel.

The Gaza Strip is their own space which shares a border with Egypt. Why is that a prison any more than say Monaco or Lichtenstein is a prison? Unless of course they devote all their energies to annihilating their neighbour rather than focusing on building a better life for their own population.

That's true. If Hamas would care about gazans they would not use pipelines to make rockets.
Hamas are not freedom fighters, they are terrorist. They not just terrorise Israel, they also treat badly/hurt anyone who thinks differently to them in Gaza. The hamas founder's son talk about this in his interviews.

Why West are so pro hamas I would not understand it. To be pro Palestinian yes but to be pro hamas and minimise the horrible attack inflected to jew people in Israel is disgusting.

Can I please ask that this thread remain for discussion about fears regarding anti-Jew rhetoric and attacks in the West? This has been derailed and is just like the dozens of other threads pitting Israel and Palestine against each other.

I came here looking for support, reassurance, and commonality, not an argument about whose land is whose. This thread is not about supporting either side of the conflict.

Thank you to @Trulywonderful for trying to help with this.

Hamas won in a landslide in their last election. Since Israel has done out of its way to try and delegitimise the functioning of Gaza and its people railing against the system, they chose extreme measures.

Given Hamas' charter, are you surprised?

That's to @Akatsiy

Turns out this happens in all places that implement apartheid. I hear Nelson Mandela was a terorrist and Gandhi an enemy of the state. Weird, right?

Nelson Mandela was fighting for equality for all South Africans, not for the right to cleanse wipe out an ethnic group. So it's quite an offensive comparison.

WibbleWobbleFlop
Sorry your thread has gone that way.

I sincerely think the media hasn't helped in its reporting. For every person who has taken time to find out about the situation, and who has the sense to know this is by far greater than who did what in the last week or so, there's people who don't know much about the topic who have huge amounts of propaganda (from both sides) thrown at them.

My personal view is that if the IDF and Netanyahu continue this line of attack then not only is it appalling for civilians in Gaza, it's likely to breed the next generation of terrorists who will hate Israel and it's also likely to trigger increased antisemitism around the globe.

I'm also starting to become a little suspicious of how often people use cries of antisemitism to shut down criticism of the Israeli government. Most Jewish posters on Mumsnet (those who've said they are Jewish) have tended to be very clear that criticism of Israel is not antisemitic, but there's still posts that try to shut the discussion down. When it first started I thought it was ignorance and ideological blindness, but now I'm starting to find myself wondering whether this is deliberately done to stir up the sentiment of "see, see, you can't say anything against the Jews... (Whispers something about Jewish people controlling everything)".

These threads are so boring. Full of unhinged posts screeching 'what about dead babies' 'what about islamophobia', many, many bot posts and a handful of sensible ones.