Do lots of people support Hamas?

[elprup]

I just read this story and it is absolutely horrific

I saw ten Hamas terrorists beat and gang-rape an Israeli woman

https://mol.im/a/12820081

Is everyone on the pro-Palestine marches in London solely supporting the innocent civilians of Palestine (as I do too)? Or are there some people on these marches supporting the actions of Hamas as well?

I want to join the marches in support of innocent adults and kids in Gaza (and I would want to march for the same reasons on any pro Israel marches too), but I do not want to endorse Hamas in any shape or form. They are absolutely vile.

@Lwrenagain I know some drug dealers and football hooligans from very wealthy backgrounds! But I don't think they are quite comparable to individuals driven by extreme religion, and Islamic terrorism.
I really don't think you can treat that movement purely as a consequence of political and socioeconomic factors. It is deeply rooted in religious-ideological factors too, and that's the reason also why the support beyond those we might class as 'Hamas' (eg male militants) is much bigger and wider than most people would want to admit. This is what makes it all so messy and complicated.

@XRAYTHIS i felt you were attempting to smear all the protestors (as has been widely done by the media, some MNers and the one and only now sacked Suella Braverman) by pointing to this one incident as "proof" that the marches at a whole were support for Hamas. This is why I countered it.

The vast majority of marchers are marching peacefully. I haven't seen this incident you speak of, so can't comment on it. If they were pro-Hamas types then they should of course be arrested.

That said if 0.0004% of a group of people of 800k are arrested obviously it is a shame that they are, but wholly false to smear the entire group on the actions of a handful.

This. Thousand times.

OP is clearly diverging from the main issue at hand pulling everyone else to think about Hamas.

No. In fact, it is the contrary - the Belfast Agreement was achieved with the defeat of the Provisional I.R.A and Provisional Sinn Féin. The Provos had to accept what they always opposed and achieved NONE of their long held key core demands in the Agreement itself.

The British Government, on the other hand, achieved their key core goals held since 1920. 🤷‍♂️

There have been several people on Mumsnet who clearly invriminated themselves in support for Hamas. Some of them were reported by myself and I reminded MN of their legal responsibilities to get them to delete as well as ban such users.

Others are what is called sneaking regarders and there's more of them posting covert support for Hamas.

It does exist here and may not be immediately recognisable to most members here. But I can see them due to long experience in this area.

I am not and do not smear the entire group. I struggled with why a man protesting hamas was shoved around, hit and surrounded by a group of masked men. They clearly did not condemn hamas. Neither did the ones either carrying or shouting anti semitic hatred.

I think and hope its a small number but its the fact that they don't get called out by people around them that shocks and troubles me. Hence my post.

There are terrorist supporters in this country and probably in most countries and when they feel emboldened to walk within a protest and show their hate without being called out, there will be troubles ahead.

One of these evil people will go to the next step as has happened before. The Arianna Grande concert, London bombings, the London Bridge attack. When they feel they are supported or perhaps not called out.

On the contrary, the extent of civilian support for ANY terrorist group is a very important factor in armed conflicts.

For PIRA, there was only a very, very small percentage of support in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

For Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, it is the reverse - majority support.

Palestinians are usually surprised to find most in NI and ROI opposed PIRA, especially given the history between PIRA and Hamas.

Civilian support is a factor in both recurrence and prolonging of conflict. It is not something insignificant or a "distraction" from it. To argue it is, is to have only a very partial picture of the conflict.

Indeed. A friend worked in counter terrorism. These people are careful in how they word support, grow stronger when not challenged, they know who they can persuade, radicalise and use.

Indeed.

@DownNative I'm not denying there is support for Hamas within Palestine. However I am not surprised there is, given how they are oppressed by Israelis (no I do not condone Hamas). What I am dismayed about is every Palestinian being treated as if they were Hamas. And the way Israel uses this to bomb innocent civilians and commit warcrimes willy nilly. And that expressing support for Palestinians gets you labelled a Hamas supporter. And is the excuse by so many people as to the reason Palestinians are treated like shit, even when this treatment has been ongoing for many decades prior. People labelling babies "hamas" supporters. People saying shooting unarmed children is good because they might be Hamas. Disgusting.

It is.

Counter terrorism have a busy workload.

They're not really comparable, I'm just trying to explain my deeply inarticulate train of thought. I wasn't trying to downplay the crimes committed by hamas or any other terrorist organisation, I hope it didn't come across as such!

Someone I loved was gang raped during a armed robbery of her brothers farm. There were deaths and hostages and absolute carnage. She joined a support group for other women in South Africa who'd also been raped in hostage situations and some of the things that had happened to those women are the stuff of psychopaths nightmares. They're so graphic I won't tell you.
We discussed at length what had happened to her over the years and I asked her how she felt anyone could do something so heinous.
She explained that the divide between black and white community south Africans was so awful, that people from each side believed the other were no better than animals and had been raised to hate the other and women and children were collateral damage within that hate.

Whilst religion and oppression make things so much more complicated than my little head can truly comprehend, if we look at the individuals who commit atrocities, not as men in their millions who've done these things but each individual, how many would be capable of these horrific crimes without the mindset they must be in to justify their actions?

Most women I know, including myself have dealt with forced sexual experience but nothing as inconceivable as the tales of terrorist abuse to women. I just think the worse the situations these men are from, the worse their anger is and crimes become.
Everything with terrorism seems fuelled by genuine anger and hatred and women are the most vulnerable to this.

No the original poster was correct. The Good Friday Agreement happened because the IRA were at the table.

I would also argue that your point about them achieving no goals is incorrect. They got all their prisoners released and they got a promise of a border poll once the majority in the North appears to be in favour of it. A united Ireland is their goal and the peaceful way to achieve that is a border poll.

I know you're a unionist so you paint things differently, but I couldn't let that go unchallenged.

OP I don't think you commented on Israel's part in all this. Would you care to comment?

Your post I responded to certainly read as though you are attempting to deny and/or downplay the extent of Palestinian support for Palestinian terrorist groups.

Given the high levels of Palestinian support for terrorist groups, its not unreasonable for people to respond on that basis. Only a minority of Palestinians do NOT support a single terrorist group in Gaza and West Bank.

Research over the years does suggest that perceptions of oppression does not adequately explain support for a terrorist group. Its rather more complicated than that - Rogelio Alonso's "IRA And Armed Struggle" has an excellent section on the process of terrorist group radicalisation, e.g. deindividuation, group think, dehumanisation and so on. A book I recommend, personally.

The high level of support for various Palestinian terrorist groups is better explained by those groups methods of dehumanising Israelis to the population they live amongst. In Gaza, this is achieved by Hamas in multiple ways, including cartoons aimed at children for example.

It has to be accepted by Western audiences that there is a significant overlap between supporting Palestinians and supporting at least one Palestinian terrorist group. Even Palestinian Authority's Fatah is not a normal, democratic political party as they have a terrorist wing too.

The phrase "two wings of the same bird" is very apt here. Applies equally well to the Provisionals.

Civilians lose protection when they take part in hostilities and civilian infrastructure lose protection when they're used for non-humanitarian purposes, including hospitals.

Don’t be daft ! I’m not saying g they need to change religion or culture but do you actually think inciting jihadism on children and martyrdom is ok?

To get back to the original question. I think it is clear that there are far too many Hamas supporters on the marches. There were people celebrating the atrocities of October 7th on streets near where I live. They were chanting and waving flags in the same manner as those on the marches . This was before Israel started bombing Gaza.
There are loads of posters on here who just don’t want to mention the horrors of October 7th or the horrors for the poor Palestinians who have to live under the oppression of Hamas. These posters won’t mention these things AT ALL. That speaks for itself

Do lots of people support Hamas?

Evidence suggests yes if social media and the news outlets are what you go by. Plus various iffy celebrities and politicians too.

However I genuinely get the impression that both in the UK and abroad the majority of people don't support Hamas and want rid of them as much as Israel. However this doesn't actually mean they support Israel either. Most people just don't like terrorism or think anything justifies what happened on the 7th October and the taking of hostages.

No, the original poster was incorrect.

PIRA never in all the decades fought for prisoner releases. 🤦‍♂️

PIRA in all the decades never fought for a border poll granted only by the relevant UK Minister. In fact, PIRA always opposed this as it meant accepting the UK was sovereign! 🤦‍♂️

That border poll doesn't even fit PIRAs definition of self-determination for the Irish people as a whole either. They never fought for TWO separate polls with the southern one subject to the Northern one. 🤦‍♂️

So, what was PIRAs actual goals all along?

1. Northern Ireland out of the UK. Didn't happen.

2. UK Government out of Northern Ireland with zero powers. Didn't happen.

3. Complete withdrawal of the British Army. Didn't happen either.

As far as PIRA was concerned, failure to achieve these aims was defeat.

The Belfast Agreement was possible because PIRA was defeated. Its not for nothing Seamus Mallon stated that the Belfast Agreement was "Sunningdale for slow learners"!

The slow learners being the Provos who opposed the central core of it and Anglo-Irish Agreement only to accept it in 1998! 🤦‍♂️

In the end, PIRA achieved NONE of their long held key core demands. And the British Government extended a golden bridge as per Sun Tzu's Art Of War which the British Army still uses to this day.

What I am is a Catholic Unionist and what you attempted was a fallacy where you try to point to bias. Unfortunately for you, any particular bias doesn't necessarily mean a person is wrong. That's why it's a waste of time trying it. 🤦‍♂️

The tearing down of hostage photos also suggests a level of support for Hamas .

I am in London and this was my experience in the first couple of days before Israel started intense bombing too

Also I agree with what you say about some users too

Ok I disagree with an awful lot of what you're saying. The three demands you mention will be pretty much covered if a border poll goes their way. And Sinn Féin is the biggest political party north and south at the moment so they're hardly failing politically.

But I don't want to derail the thread any further so I'm going to leave it at that.

@DownNative so you're basically saying that all civilians should be treated as terrorists. Rightyo. We will never agree.

You're also ignoring every hostile action that Israel takes towards Palestine, every punitive racist measure, every land grab, that their settlers attack them on a daily basis, unpunished, all the horrific things IDF do to innocent children and that they restrict Gazan's calories to the minimum, they've admitted to harvesting their ORGANS without consent. What do you make of THESE things?

Let's oppress an entire people, steal their land and manufacture consent to get rid of them and their land on the basis that some of them "support" a terrorist organisation. WTF does "support" even mean. How do you even measure "support". Even more ethically dubious to dictate that any one person expressing a one off opinion that sympathises with Hamas, they are now a "terrorist" - send them to jail, okey dokey. By all means prosecute civilians that play an active role in Hamas. But NO it's not ok to oppress an entire people on this basis. NO.

I'm sorry to say but your reasoning to me sounds like the ramblings of a fascist dictator that wants an easy excuse to oppress an entire people and doesn't give a shit about them.

To answer the question.

Yes. Lots do.

And there are a few on MN but whom are very careful to hide it.

However, there are 4 or 5 main Pro Palestinian posters extremely active on the conflict boards and they probably keep changing their names so it looks like they have support. Anyway, if you go through their posts - easy to do - just open up a thread in a browser and hit Ctrl and F together and type in their user name, you will see all their posts and see a pattern and zero condemnation for Hamas. They engage in extreme whataboutery about Israel and how they have treated Gazans badly for 75 years and therefore Israel had it coming. They also pop up on threads where obviously Jewish people are discussing concerns about Anti- Semitism.

These are the Hamas supporters. Easy to spot. I know who these posters are.

I hate to break this to you !

The newly released MI5 files (Terrorists plotted death of Bevin, May 22) further confirm historians' belief that Jewish nationalist groups fighting the British in Mandatory Palestine in the 1940s regarded themselves as "the Zionist Sinn Fein".

Both Menachem Begin and Avraham Stern looked to the Irish struggle. The nom de guerre of Yitzhak Shamir, the future Israeli prime minister, was "Michael" - after Michael Collins. Shamir studied Irish republican literature while Stern translated PS O'Hegarty's The Victory of Sinn Fein into Hebrew.

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2003/may/23/guardianletters

https://jweekly.com/1996/12/13/history-echoes-from-londonderry-hills-to-jerusalem/

Absolutely right. My range of experience is drawn from personal experience of terrorist groups, their apologists, people who were actual practitioners in security agencies against PIRA (some I know and am related to) as well as academic experts (Rogelio Alonso is one example).

Double speak is very prevalent with sneaking regarders. An equivocal condemnation is prevalent too and this isn't what it first sounds like either. Unequivocal condemnations are always much clearer, not ambiguous and leaves zero doubt.