People With Very Strong or Definite Views on the 'Right' Side

[miniaturepixieonacid]

This is mainly me being curious and struggling to understand my own feelings on all this.

I am neither Jewish nor Muslim (I'm a Christian) and have no links to Israel or Palestine. So my knowledge and understanding of the recent past is, perhaps wrongly, quite limited. All I feel is horror and sadness at what is happening to both sides in this conflict. (Other than feeling that the particular Hamas men who committed the 7th October atrocities are evidently evil and knowing that Netanyahu is very right wing of course.) I support a 2 state solution but know I don't understand all the complexities. I'd love a ceasefire but have no idea if that's possible or even advisable.

On this board and elsewhere on Mumsnet there are so many people who have come down very strongly on one side or the other and have lots of apparent evidence and knowledge to support their opinions. So, I'm wondering, if that's you, are you:
a) Israeli and/or Jewish or have family/friends who are?
b) Palestinian and/or Muslim or have family/friends who are?
c) Neither religion with no links to either country but have very clear opinions and lots of knowledge regardless.

I don't know where to go for accurate information or if knowing what I think is right or wrong even matters. I'm obsessively following the BBC but know it's probably not completely unbiased.

Atheist here. I am anti Israeli government and anti Hamas.
What you describe as " their intense obsession with Palestine" might be due to the intense bombardment, the policy of starvation and of deprivation of the basics for sustaining life that the Gazans are experiencing. You add this to the, at least, 5000 children dead in the space of a few weeks and you get what you call "their intense obsession".
Once again, being anti Israeli government does not make me antisemitic.

Its frustrating that the IDF is held to a way higher accountability than any other army in the world.
Not a problem if they haven’t put a foot wrong. If the have indeed committed war crimes however…
Are you arguing war crimes are fine when other country's commit them?

A. Non practising Jewish and Israeli. Friend murdered by a suicide bomber twenty years ago. It is hard not to take a side once you have friends or family whose life was taken or destroyed. I assume this applies to anyone who takes a side in this.

what I hate is that no one can take a second to mourn anything without a bunch of people saying something like “so you think killing babies on the other side is fine then?”

of course it’s not fine ffs. Can we just take a second to catch our breath!!

Before this thread gets derailed with inflammatory posts I’m going to copy and paste part of parkingt111 brilliant post to try to reset the tone …
”I think some of my opinions have changed slightly or you could say i have had to actively make myself try and view things from both sides based on some posters who are willing to put forward their arguments in a respectful way and show they dont hate all palestinians as then you don't automatically go in defence mode.
It's also not been always been easy to do so, because of the hurt I feel right now when day in day out all I see and read is killing of thousands of civilians and children.

I'm not anti Israel but I am quite open about my opinions on the Israeli government especially Netanyahu and the actions of some of the IDF and I think at times people can conflate that as insulting the Israeli people. But then I'm also open about how I don't think Hamas are good for the people of Gaza.

I have also been inspired by some of the peace activists in the kibbutz and think some of them are the most loveliest people which makes what happened to them all the more terrible. “

I think the point about “ going into defence mode” is well made and works for both sides. If you put someone into defence mode things obviously escalate. So any poster in here who genuinely wants peace (rather than a victory over one side) should use measured language rather than aggressive rhetoric.

I’m anti Israeli government. I fully believe and see them as terrorists. I believe anyone that supports their narrative has the mindset of a terrorist too. I am not antisemitic, but I can’t tolerate people telling me that being pro Palestine makes me pro Hamas. It doesn’t.

At the start of the war, people were asking pro Palestinians to condemn Hamas, but no pro Israeli was willing to condemn the idf. For me both are the same. I also cannot justify or agree with people saying that the Israeli government killing civilians is an act of self defense. No it isn’t. It’s genocide. I want the jeering people to have a homeland, but I also want the Palestinians to have an equal homeland and not be forced to live in slums just to make way for another group of people. Because that is racism and I don’t side with racists.

I could have written this post.

Agree.

@HeidiInTheBigCity Thanks for your comments and I do appreciate your points. That must have been a really frightening experience!

@Parkingt111
I love your reply and have followed many of your posts.

@etmoiandme and @HeidiInTheBigCity
Both great posts, from opposing “sides”

It's impossible to overstate just how much of a tragedy the loss of Rabin was.

Thank you again for all your considered and thoughtful opinions, on both sides.

I am so sorry for what so many have been through and for what the people you care about are experiencing. There are no words.

One thing I've found very interesting the more I've read and watched about the history is how moderate Israeli voices over the decades seem to have been repeatedly undermined and sidelined by hard liners who have been obsessed with settlement building and pushing Palestinians out.

I sometimes find myself wondering how the situation would be different now if more tolerant and inclusive people were calling the shots. My gut says that they'd not have created the sort of boiling pot that Gaza is now

This.

If Rabin had lived and the two state solution implemented then maybe Hamas would never of taken hold.

As I understand it the Oslo accords required the PA to ensure no terrorists set up camp in the Palestinian territories (a problem Israel anticipated). Instead we get an extra right wing government that tolerated the presence of terrorists because they were playing silly power games.

I went to a local march organised by a number of groups. This one included a Palestine solidary group, socialist worker party and Marxist society among others so they have there own political angles but united in calling for a ceasefire.
Speeches spoke of the plight of the Palestinians and how a pause does not go far enough. There was definite frustration at the lack of accountability that the Israeli government is held to particularly with its track record of breaking international and humanitarian law. There was anger at the many civilian casualties. There was also criticism of middle East leaders and their lack of action. So overiding feeling I got was people are dying in their hundreds and thousands, how is this ok or justified. That we are here today to use our voices to show we care.
I would not call it a hate march and have commented on previous threads and posters trying to do this. It was a march for peace to show solidarity and support for the Palestinians and raise awareness as there were was much curiousity in the middle of the city centre on a Saturday afternoon! There were no incidents and many joined the demo as we walked.
Regarding anti semitism, I would say no. Placards that were hand made spoke of genocide and war crimes by the Israeli government and IDF.

I'm not saying Jews don't deserve to live in peace, but 15,000 Palestinians were killed in 1948 to "allow" this.

Palestinians died in 1948 because the arab states decided to attack Israel. They were the aggressors. You can't start a war and then bleat about the consequences of the war you started.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/15/the-nakba-five-palestinian-towns-massacred-75-years-ago

Have a read of this. Some may have been killed in the way you describe but some of the stories horrifically describe peaceful civilians brutally murdered.

I have no doubt that horrific things happened, they always do in war. But with this particular war there's a determined effort to reframe the aggressors as the victims.

@MrTiddlesTheCat just wow. The irony of your post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba_denial

So are you claiming that it was Israel that declared war on the arab states in 1948 then?

@MrTiddlesTheCat I honestly don't think anyone has framed Hamas as victims. But the 6000? -is it now?- children killed and tortured, and many ordinary people harmed are. No one can help where they are born - and I include the hostages and innocent Israelis killed in that as well.

I was responding to the post about the 1948 arab-israeli war where the poster was painting the aggressors as the victims.

@MrTiddlesTheCat Apologies - I misunderstood your post, as referring to current events.

C I have sat alongside a couple of Muslims at work and got on fine with them. For years I knew a British secular Jewish person and the non-Jewish spouse and was sometimes their guest.

I know a little but not a lot.

Do I have strong views? Well, I think that the Israelis should have a homeland and be allowed to live in safety and I think the Palestinians should be able to, as well. I cannot see that they could flourish under Hamas's rule.

In C of E churches prayers are said on Sundays. IF YOU THINK YOU WILL BE OFFENDED BY A PRAYER SAID IN A CHRISTIAN CHURCH DON'T READ FURTHER, BUT SCROLL TO THE NEXT POST.

Last week these words were said in one C of E church:

God of Isaac and Ishmael, who were born in the Middle East,
God of Samson, who was a prisoner in Gaza,
Father of the baby Jesus, who was carried to safety in Egypt,
Father of the adult Jesus, who lost his temper in the Temple when he saw wrong-doing,
comfort and strengthen your people in Gaza and Israel,
give healing and hope in the midst of devestation,
confound all people who teach their children to hate,
direct the brokers and negotiators and peacemakers.

The person who read the prayer said he found some of the phrases on the internet and some in his head, from his knowledge of the Bible.

I have no doubt that horrific things happened, they always do in war. But with this particular war there's a determined effort to reframe the aggressors as the victims.

Israel is occupying Palestinian land, not visa versa, and yet they are the victims not the aggressors? 🤔

It’s almost as if this conflict is to darn complicated for black and white thinking.