62% of British adults are not taking a side in the Israel-Gaza conflict

[lavender2023]

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/10/16/b8bd3/1

Personally as a Jewish person (with family in Israel), I feel heartened by the results as it shows we are a compassionate country who can feel sympathy with both sides or are sensible enough to tick 'don't know' when they feel like they can't understand a complicated foreign conflict. I personally would probably tick 'both sides equally' or 'don't know' because i have such mixed feelings! I was reading some posts yesterday about Jewish people who want to move to Israel because apparently anti-semitism is worse than rockets. There are very valid concerns but we should at least take heart that the majority of people are far more nuanced and not taking sides like one would pick a football team, or are anti Israel . Social media isn't real life

There are regional variations but even in London, 56% of people are not taking sides. The one age group which is pro palestinian is the 18-24 group which is 39%, but at the same time, the combined numbers of 'don't know' and 'both sides' are 40%.

I can’t believe you’re still trying to blame the atrocities on Hamas’s failure to fix them, rather than Israel committing them in the first place.

is that genocide math ?

@Desertrose2023 I am blaming it on Hamas' failure to address any of those things in the past twenty years.

I think figures will have changed dramatically since then. I know I don't speak for everyone of course, but I don't know a single person IRL who supports the Israeli government. In fact, not even anyone who is neutral - they generally condemn their actions. Even at work I've noticed a lot of colleagues who haven't really mentioned politics/world affairs before mention their disgust after catching up with the news - and we don't tend to discuss politics (I personally still don't, at work).

For the first time in my life I plan on attending a protest. The images coming out of Gaza and the west bank have been absolutely shocking and beyond comprehension. The comments made publicly by the Israeli prime minister and other government members are sickening. Certainly not the actions of a civilised government. The hypocrisy and double standards in the media and even on these mumsnet threads is disgusting.

I fully agree. I am definitely on the side of the poor Palestinians suffering at the moment and am horrified at what I am seeing in the news. I am equally horrified at the stance those representing the UK seem to be taking and the role the media is playing in trying to present a one-sided picture in support of Israel. I'm not Jewish, but the area I live is heavily populated with Jewish people and its been sad to realise I'm not allowed to voice my opinion without immediately being accused of antisemitism. I have no problem with Jewish people and have lovely jewish neighbours, but I condemn the Israeli actions on innocent children and it seems very hard to do that without automatically being labelled antisemitic. I feel the limitations being put on free speech in this country very scary and I think that would have contributed to the above survey results.

I don't want to take a side. There's enough division in the world and I'm sick of black and white thinking.
Why do we all need to be divided when we are all actually against the same thing?
During covid, we all wanted to stop people from suffering yet we were divided into groups like Covidiots or sheep or anti vaxxers.
Now we're all pro Israeli or pro Palestinians or worse, pro Hamas (which is so much lower than what the media is trying to show. Why are they doing that?)

We all just mostly want people to stop being killed.

I hate what's happening now. It's so wrong and evil and now I feel I'm being penned into a side.

It is terrible that innocents on both sides have been killed. However there is nothing I can do about this so other than seeing a passing news article I give it very little thought.

Agree it is heartening to hear that OP.

I find the intense and graphic nature of the media coverage of it very unwise. (Zelensky must be tearing his hair out going why does no one care about Ukraine anymore). Journalists LOVE war. It gives them an endless supply of emotive stories requiring little research, the facts of which are uncheckable by readers.

But, being fed this much detail on war every day is not good for us. It makes us feel we should pick a side and that is ridiculous. Don’t get involved in other people’s wars unless you have to is usually the best path.

Finally a thread on this war I can post on! I won't take sides over this war. I have sympathies for both sides, and revulsion for both. Killing is wrong, no matter the motives. It's not going to lead anywhere good.

Desmond Tutu had a famous quote: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

He said this in the context of his anti-apartheid activism.

Tutu also showed solidarity with Palestinians and stated that Israel was committing apartheid against them.

In recent years, organisations such as Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and B'Tselem have also stated that Israel is committing apartheid.

So assuming any Palestinians survive this latest round of mass ethnic cleaning-words from a UN human rights expert- are they to accept the oppression, the apartheid fate which still awaits them still? Or should they continue to resist? And then be accused of stopping peace? Peace in this context means that the oppressor wins.

May as well quote another rights activist, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice”- Martin Luther King Jr. AKA “No justice, no peace”.

If you’ve ever wondered what you’d have done during past historical atrocities, look at what you are doing now.

There is also plenty you can do. You vote for starters, right? If you support Palestinians, people are protesting, writing to their MPs, the list goes on. Starbucks, McDonalds and Walt Disney Co. stocks are still down after boycotts that have been lasting for more than two weeks. Money talks.

I suspect that the majority of the 62% in that poll are ignorant to what has been happening. Also that poll was taken over two weeks ago. The Israel PR machine can’t still be doing that well, can it?

From the UN:
“Since 1948 the UN General Assembly called for refugee return, property restitution and compensation…the rights of the Palestinian people continue to be denied.”

Millions of Palestine refugees remain scattered throughout the Middle East and wider world.

The real tragedy here is that people should have been learning and talking about Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people so much more and for so much longer.

I saw a man on the news who'd lost his whole family and home. He said all he wants is for the world to see what has been happening to the Palestinians for decades 😢

The strange thing is I remember these protests happening 20 odd years ago. They weren’t being called “hate marches” then, despite I’m sure the same minority proportion of idiots spouting hate, back then, nobody was trying to get them banned but now, that people are getting wiser than ever before, I dunno, it’s odd that suddenly these protests are ‘really really bad” now and people are trying to control this. That, on top of the extreme gaslighting and silencing techniques, I dunno it’s making me suspicious they want us not to speak out 🤔

I disagree. I know many Christians who are desperately concerned about the situation in the Middle East and also about the threats to Jewish people living in the Uk.

The loss of any human life is a terrible thing and both sides are at fault. Hard to to pick a side unless there is an option of complete loss of faith in humanity - if so, that's my side.

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. - Elie Wiesel

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis - Dante Alighieri

the poll was taken two weeks ago so outdated I expect, last count Israel had killed 8500 children and adults with their so called ‘targeted attacks aka genocide. Israel could have opted to utilise intelligence to undertake properly targeted killings, which is what many other countries would do to avoid killing innocent children, women, elderly, also seriously injuring thousands.

I don’t know anyone who supports Israel (or hamas). The Palestinians have been oppressed by Israel for a hundred years so naturally there are lots of angry young men ready to risk their lives.

It could be because of social media, and particularly TikTok and influencers such as Shaun King and Motaz Azaiza. Israel’s crimes are now being broadcast on social media in real time, without Western mainstream media censorship.

People in the UK and USA are now seeing what much of the rest of the world has known for decades.

That means a swelling of support for the Palestinian plight.

The UK is a political ally to Israel and the USA so of course doesn’t like this (plus all that juicy cash from selling arms to Israel). The silencing and propaganda isn’t new, but they’re having to double-down on it.

Look at what is happening in the USA right now- students all over the country have been protesting and striking in support of Palestine, leading the way just like they did against apartheid in South Africa, just like they did against the war in Vietnam.

The government doesn’t like this and has used the spurious accusation that they’re hate marches to pass a bill and get them banned. Meanwhile Harvard has set up a task force to help those students getting threatened and doxxed for protesting.

So we need to march more than ever before!

@CatsArePawesome thank you that makes perfect sense, and they will start trying to ban social media accounts too, selectively because it’s not good to know too much 🙄 I hope Motaz stays safe 🙏

I’m amazed it’s not higher! I don’t know anyone in real life who has strong views on this, beyond “oh how awful”.

I don’t know anyone who supported the original Hamas attack that kicked this off, or anyone who doesn’t think Israel is going a bit far now, and ordinary Palestinians are suffering. I don’t know anyone who thinks Israel doesn’t have the right to exist though. Most people I know just think it is an intractable mess. I guess we all live in our own bubbles 🤷‍♀️

Exactly. It’s already happening. And also more stealthily ‘shadow banning’- where the social media algorithms start to limit how much you see of certain accounts on your feed/homepage. Internally at Twitter it’s been called "visibility filtering”. It’s a well known and common tactic.

It gets worse- two weeks ago Instagram had do apologise for ‘mistakenly’ adding “terrorist” to some Palestinian user bios:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67169228.amp

Perhaps they didn’t have their money on Greta Thunberg coming out in support of Palestine though. 😂Looking forward to the PR spin there.

Motaz for the win!

If you don’t ‘pick a side’ you are, inadvertently, picking the side of Israel. Right now Israel is burning babies alive and this will continue unless there is greater public pressure to stop.

Otherwise you’re just making excuses to say nothing while witnessing a genocide.

It’s not the noble position some think it is.

(Ceasefire doesn’t mean giving up on the Israeli hostages btw. Hamas have said and shown that they’re willing to negotiate. Blowing up all of Gaza won’t save the hostages either).

😂😂😂😂
laughable.
most members of their cabinet are flagrant racists.
they have been brutally and systematically abusing and killing Palestinians for decades. Using bulldozers to flatten their homes and displace them. Encouraging radical Zionist settlers to destroy their crops and set fire to their orchards and take over their homes.
Making Palestinian’s lives a misery so that they give up their land and leave.
even Israeli Arabs suffer systematic racism all throughout Israel.
now carpet bombing Gazans mercilessly because they’re “trying to capture Hamas.” And people buying into this unbelievable amount of crap. Tell me, does a “civilised” nation bomb a refugee camp? Does a “civilised” nation murder over 3,000 babies indiscriminately?
sure, “civilised.” 😂😂😂 Keep telling yourself that.

This.

Am I right in thinking that the British had a role in creating the issues at play today back in the 40s?? I don't know all the details but if this is true then I'm so ashamed to be British. We truly have messed up the world with our empire complex

Sickened by some of these responses. Israel is the civilised one?!

They are thousands upon thousands of people being killed on a daily basis, bombed without respite, children burned/blinded, parents holding bloody sheets containing their loved ones. Women sleeping fully covered at night in case they die while asleep. No anaesthesia, hospitals being razed to the ground, no food, no electricity, diseases are beginning to appear. How can anybody justify this kind of response is appropriate??!

I would like to know how many Hamas members have been killed in comparison to the ordinary civilians (mostly children) paying the price for their actions.

What happened on 7th October was terrible. But please do not use it to justify the mass murder/ genocide the bloodthirsty Israeli government are committing right now. No, sorry ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’. Sorry my bad, carry on then…kill them all, it’s just unfortunate collateral damage after all…