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%.

That Atlantic piece was very good. I actually took out a trial subscription to read it.

Ok @BrimfulOfMash if you are opposed to peaceful protest because it "does nothing" are you suggesting people resort to violent resistance?

More than that actually 30% are ashkenazi and they mostly come from ex soviet union. Not sure I would call Russia European!

According to Jewish Agency data for the period between September 1, 2021, and September 1, 2022, 26,000 olim arrived from Russia; 14,000 olim from Ukraine — most arriving on Jewish Agency rescue operations during the war; 3,800 from the U.S. and Canada, with assistance from Nefesh B’Nefesh; 2,500 from France; 1,600 from Belarus; 1,450 olim from Ethiopia were reunited with their relatives in Israel as part of Operation Tzur Israel; 1,100 from Argentina; 600 from the United Kingdom; 500 from South Africa and 400 from Brazil.

As you can see, most people who move to Israel are escaping countries in turmoil/difficult economic situations! British Jews who move to UK are an absolute statistic anomaly

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel#:~:text=As%20of%20March%202023%2C%20Israel's,%25%20(around%202.048%20million).

Also if you look at country of origin, the percentages for USA/Canada/UK/France are absolutely tiny.

100% THIS

Also the UK is politically involved. This isn’t just about some ‘faraway country’. So the UK public can and should have a say.

Right now Israel is burning babies alive- with the UK’s support- and this will continue unless there is greater public pressure to stop.

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

You’re of course free to stay out of it, but don’t pretend that’s a noble position.

And if you need evidence of this, look at Keir Starmer and the Labour Party backtracking, now they see a swell of public solidarity with Palestine.

There’s a general election next year, lots of politicians keen to look good right now…

Are you trying to deny Israel is a purposeful ethno-religious state? It is intended as a homeland for Jewish people.

' The imperial powers—Britain and France—made all sorts of promises to different peoples, and then put their own interests first. Those promises to the Jews and the Arabs during World War I were typical. Afterward, similar promises were made to the Kurds, the Armenians, and others, none of which came to fruition. But the central narrative that Britain betrayed the Arab promise and backed the Jewish one is incomplete. In the 1930s, Britain turned against Zionism, and from 1937 to 1939 moved toward an Arab state with no Jewish one at all. It was an armed Jewish revolt, from 1945 to 1948 against imperial Britain, that delivered the state.
Israel exists thanks to this revolt, and to international law and cooperation, something leftists once believed in. The idea of a Jewish “homeland” was proposed in three declarations by Britain (signed by Balfour), France, and the United States, then promulgated in a July 1922 resolution by the League of Nations that created the British “mandates” over Palestine and Iraq that matched French “mandates” over Syria and Lebanon. In 1947, the United Nations devised the partition of the British mandate of Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish.
The carving of such states out of these mandates was not exceptional, either. At the end of World War II, France granted independence to Syria and Lebanon, newly conceived nation-states. Britain created Iraq and Jordan in a similar way. Imperial powers designed most of the countries in the region, except Egypt.
Nor was the imperial promise of separate homelands for different ethnicities or sects unique. The French had promised independent states for the Druze, Alawites, Sunnis, and Maronites but in the end combined them into Syria and Lebanon. All of these states had been “vilayets” and “sanjaks” (provinces) of the Turkish Ottoman empire, ruled from Constantinople, from 1517 until 1918.'

An ethnic homeland sounds weird based on 2023 understanding but it was typical of that time. Countries are often created as a product of their times and elements of it do stay. Also the left believes that refugees fleeing persecution should be welcomed elsewhere and given shelter.

Based on the stats, almost all Jews living in the land of Israel were escaping war, persecution, were expelled or are the descendants of such people. The steoreotype of the carefree American making aliyah for free benefits is an absolute minority (and most of those people leave within 3 years). I came to the UK 10 years ago, no one calls me a settler. No one calls Rishi Sunak a settler either and his family have been here for a far shorter time than many Israelis

Yet again a thread derailed by the same old posters. Presumably the 48%. Never miss an opportunity to inject more emotion and division.
Fwiw when I talk about the conflict in person I see reason, nuance, and empathy. Online? It's thoroughly poisoned with propaganda, disinformation, astroturfing, and perhaps genuinely insane people. I mean releasing rats in a McDonald’s ?
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/man-lets-rats-loose-mcdonalds-birmingham/

This is what the Jewish posters were saying, a homeland for the Jewish people. There's nothing incorrect or disputed about that. I was responding to a pp who was making out like it was a home for "everyone". @Simplesimonsdog if you think that's "injecting emotion" or "divisive" you need to examine your own thoughts. The state of Israel was intended to be divisive - a homeland for Jewish people. And I'm not saying that in a goady way, it's a fact and is in its constitution.

Isn't the 'taking sides' what causes the problem in the first place, in its most basic form it's the Muslims v the Jews.

I'm not religious in anyway and just find it hard to understand why in this day and age people can't live along side each other.

There is no doubt that wrongdoing has been done by both parties but my biggest worry is that the current war will have repercussions for years to come.

Even if Hammas in its current form is wiped out there is nothing to stop is rising from the ashes again.

I think people say they don't take sides because most people just want a peaceful solution and both sides need to want that to happen.

Good. I completely agree. Any normal person with a smattering of empathy can see it is a very complicated history that no one can see to agree on, in terms of who has the ‘right’ to live where. And all humans involved in the conflict have gone through a lot of pain, as have those in the UK who are now experiencing discrimination because of it.

This inability to reason, a dogged insistence on seeing things in black and white, reminds me of the fundamentalist Christians I encountered at school. Maybe it's something about growing up saturated with religious dogma and certainty that God is on your side?

It's very confusing for person like me. Attack on 7th Oct was unforgiveable. But it doesn't make it right to retaliate killing innocents.

Another thing that keeps to come to my mind is, from the history, doesn't UK has bigger obligation to intervene and sort it out?

The same UN which just appointed IRAN as the chair of the U.N. Human Rights Council Social Forum.

I refuse to 'pick a side'.

Both leaderships are despicable, the history of the region is very complicated and innocent people are dying horribly. I'm not ever going to say X side's actions are more justified than y's when the actions of both are equally abhorrent.

What's the point in publicly taking a side in such a contentious issue where they all just do wtf they want anyway. The whole middle East is a shit show.

Time and time and time again it’s been proven that when we stick our noses into conflicts in the Middle East, involving many complex factors, none of which we really understand, there have been significant and disastrous unforeseen consequences, consequences that come down on the heads of the innocent people in that area, not us in our ignorant, insulated, privileged bubble.

It’s hideous to watch these pictures day after day of innocent people being slaughtered, but the truth is, there is nothing we can do about it, if there were it would’ve been done years ago. I can pretty confidently predict that if there is even one single person on this thread who has anywhere near a full and competent working understanding of all the complex factors playing out in that area, the power dynamics between Hamas and the people, the political and religious situation in the surrounding Arab world, doubtless loads of other things I don’t even know I don’t even know about, that will be as many, and they’ll probably tell you that it’s far from black-and-white, and we are far from having anywhere near the sort of knowledge and understanding that means we are qualified to pick sides, not that such a thing would be helpful.

i’m not arrogant enough to think I’ve got anywhere near enough knowledge to speak about this subject beyond to say it’s hideous to witness. I’m afraid when I see similarly clueless people, pontificating, making ill informed proclamations, shouting at other people who won’t bow down to their superior moral decrees, and imagining they know best on things about witch they know fuck all, I just think, you arrogant twats, you are indicative of the problem that the west has had all along, being arrogant enough to think we can stick our beaks into situations and places that we know nothing about, knowing in our righteous certitude that we know best. Oh, how the irony hits me, the fact that most of these people would be the very same people who use white western guilt as a virtue stick to beat us lessser moral beings with. The hypocrisy, oh the hypocrisy, but then why should I be surprised?

The whole Middle East is a “shit show” because the likes of Europe and the west simply can’t leave it alone due to imperialism and greedy agendas. The current mess in Israel and Palestine - was caused by the British. Total destabilization of the region caused by US/UK invasion of Iraq. I could go on and on.

maybe you shouldn’t be so flippant about an entire region of people without acknowledging this country’s role to play in that “shit show”

Interesting, would you say india or pakistan is divisive? They are also countries built for a certain ethnic group? The Jews are not an ethnic group but they are a people/tribe with a strong connection with one another and they believe that they should live in Israel. There were Kaifeng Jews who basically had lost connection with Judaism but remember their grandparents saying that one day, they will go back to the homeland.

Certainly for Jews living in non western countries, the homeland is not just a nice romantic idea, it is a necessity (or the alternative is dying in a pogrom or being persecuted). Hence the state of Israel must exist and I feel grateful that I have better options. I wouldn't want to live in a country built on ethnic foundations but I am also enormously privileged to have that view. If I was a Yemenite Jew, I would probably change my views on that asap.

Having said that, if the UK was at war and Israel somehow wasn't and my home country was not helpful in issuing a spouse visa for DH (the criteria has always been a bit opaque which was why we settled in London) and i struggled to get a visa to places like america, canada and australia (which would probably be impossible in a third world war), my only destination would be Israel.

Not taking sides does not mean staying silent. Of course we should call out any behaviours that are wrong. But we shouldn't descend into hatred and dehumanising. It is frightening how people can get so caught up, to the point that they don't have even minimal empathy for the other side. I can see why that happens to those who are directly involved, but the rest of us owe it to the innocents on both sides to care, and to ask our governments to de-escalate.

I think most older people have taken a side but they are too sensible to post it online since Suella and Rishi have conflated pro-Palestinianism with supporting terrorism. I’m Hindu and Indian - most Indian Hindus I know would have taken a pro-Israel stance ten years ago, but the conflict that began on Oct 7th has brought back their own independance and ethnic cleansing traumas from India and East Africa and most are now anti-Israel. But there’s nobody stupid enough to fill out a Yougov poll to potentially out themselves.

1. India is secular. It has many, many ‘official’ religions and has the largest Muslim population on earth (and it still takes many Muslim refugees from across Asia). India became home (via East Africa) to many Arab and Palestinian Jews displaced by Israel (yes that happened - several Hindu castes are descended from them and still use Jewish names). The problems India had with Far Right Hinduism started with the BJP party that came into power - they decided (while keeping India secular) to offer a guarantee to any Hindu refugee that they would be offered asylum there. But they take many, many more Buddhist / Muslim refugees.
2. Pakistan was created as a Muslim nation (by the UK at a similar time Israel was). Like Israel they pumped money into Pakistan at the beginning (at the time Muslims were viewed by colonisers as better than Hindus) but what let Pakistan down was it’s non-Indian borders . They were too permeable and the country then basically started going downhill once the the remote parts became terrorist havens.
3. Yemenite Jews became persecuted on mass scales during the time anti-semitism was rising everywhere (ie the interwar period). Nazism definitely influenced the attitude eg Orphan Decree etc. But mass scale persecutions outside of Yemen only happened AFTER the UN voted to divide Palestine as they were scapegoated while white Jews coming from Europe were portrayed as victims (often by UN and British authorities on the ground)

This is just silly - the yougov data is anonymised. Who are you outing yourself to? Who are they going to tell? I wouldm't talk to a pollster in Hamas controlled Gaza but its safe here.

I know this. I just don't think it means I have to publically say anything which is a lose lose situation. I'm flippant about it because there is no good answer to any of this without a time machine

💯 %. Excellent post.

How quickly we forget that this is in no small part our mess. And, having played historic roles on helping to bring this about, it sickens me that the UK government is taking clear sides with the Israeli government and professing support for their actions in our name.

Not in mine.