What is going on on the left? Gaza/Israel conflict

[Notsuretoputit]

I am left wing, I wouldn’t consider myself anything other. I absolutely support Israel, have no problem understanding and supporting Zionism, and am absolutely horrified by the rising levels of anti-semitism in the UK.

It is to my despair that much of that anti-semitism is being perpetrated by those on the left. People I like, consider friends, who are tolerant and who I would never, ever have considered racist or anti-Semitic are plastering their Facebook walls with pro-Hamas TikTok propaganda. These are not teenagers naively believing propaganda, these are people who’ve spend years active in (left wing) politics.

I’ve read a lot in recent weeks about the far left’s historical problem with anti-semitism, but how can it be that nice, friendly, socially conscious people are indulging in this insane display of anti-semitism? Actively showing support for a terrorist organisation? Refusing to believe Hamas is guilty of any crimes, or that they have an excellent propaganda machine currently in operation. What is going on?

@Desertrose2023 I am confused about what any of this has to do with the left and its response to the Gaza/ Israel crisis unless there are other conspiracy rabbit holes anyone wants to go down....

I mean seriously. Benjamin Netanyahu was originally another name..... the bastard.

Pesky Jews can't be trusted.

I also don't get the bit about harvesting organs. The article clearly says that bits and pieces were taken from the bodies of all deceased, including Israelis and foreigners. It's clearly just a poorly managed consent process such as many hospitals used to practise, not yet more proof that Palestinian bodies counted for less.

I was responding to a specific poster but you’re right, happy to stick to the topic at hand.

re your last comment, do you realize that when you continue to falsely accuse people of antisemitism it actually does more harm than good ? It causes people to take allegations of antisemitism in general less seriously.

@Desertrose2023 I wonder of the relevance of what you are saying.... he changed his name for politics. And?

I just spy the undercurrent of what I suggested. I might be wrong but that's my call I guess. I would never seek to discredit or quieten down someone saying they thought something was racist.

It's perception.

The op doesn't actually want to talk about the left now. Too busy apparently. A quite common complaint - icing cakes and whatnot

It’s clearly a c-ck up and terrible for the people involved, of the kind that happens even across western countries. We have had all sorts of medical scandals in the UK. But this shows how anti-Israel propaganda works. It has absolutely nothing to do with Israel/Palestine. But they take something like this (which by the way, is known about thanks to Israeli whistleblowers and Israeli journalists), apply the most eye-catching and extreme phrase possible like “organ harvesting”, pop it into a thread and are like “see!” The not-so-subtle implication being, this is not an outlier, this is evil not incompetence, this is how they operate, they are all in on it, they all support it, this just shows how evil they are and how they can’t be trusted to govern themselves. Based on that, of course it’s not accurate to say Jews/Israelis (or whatever euphemism you are using) harvest organs. And it absolutely plays off the blood libel.

I think the conversation regarding support against Israel in the left can boil down to the fact that the double standards and hypocrisy is clear.

From the information/polls ive seen Jewish people tend to be left leaning in the UK and the US - similar to many other individuals from marginalised communities.
But, when met with any critism of Israel, it seems to be a continuous cycle of deflect, deny, downplay.

That's what baffles me, I don't understand how people on one side can speak up for (for example) women's rights and bodily autonomy but then downplay the forced or coerced injection of contraception to a group of people when evidence has been put forward. This happens over a decade ago, yet Israeli supporters are still downplaying or denying this occurred.

(apologies I initially wrote sterilisation, that wasn't the correct term to use, another poster has shared a news article but in summary, Ethiopian Jews were injected with long lasting contraceptives that resulted in a decline in the birthrate of the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel, many women were told the injections were for inoculation or were told they would not be able to enter Israel without the injections and would also be denied any further health care. Some women were injected for years, and some women thereafter had fertility problems)

I understand the persecution Jewish people have faced throughout history and why they feel they need their own Jewish state.

But if you keep denying all credible critism of Israel, i wonder if in decades to come Israel will be the home you were hoping for.

We harvested organs too in that case - the Alder Hey scandal.

do you realize that when you continue to falsely accuse people of antisemitism it actually does more harm than good ? It causes people to take allegations of antisemitism in general less seriously.

It's genuinely boggling my mind that some people think this is reasonable way to speak to someone from a minority ethnic group. Jaw-dropping even. Do you honestly not see how this looks? Is there really no other way you can discuss this without resorting to repeatedly telling Jews they're lying?

Why do you want to spread hatred so much?
That person was saying that not all jewish people support genocide.
That’s a good thing and important thing to hear right now.

Because there are two things you can hold in your head.

• The scandal itself, how it was covered at the time, asking important questions: were these women offered translators? Were enough translators available? Why did medical staff not raise the issue of lack of translators? What consent process was there? What are the implications for these women? Should they be compensated? What can we change for future women? Has a crime taken place? vs
• Remove the incident from its context, use it as an example to “prove” that Israeli people are uniquely inhumane and devoid of consciences, because you disagree with Israelis on something completely unrelated. This is not constructive criticism because you have to misreport the scandal in order to use it this way. Rather than looking at the process and what went wrong, instead you have to say: it happened intentionally, because these people are just bad.

Imagine if you saw a Russian propaganda channel calling the UK mass “baby-killers” and surprised, you watched on, to find they were talking about the case of Lucy Letby. And they’re talking about it like it’s every nurse and doctor, every day, in every hospital, it’s standard practice in the NHS to torture and kill babies. You wouldn’t say “oh I’ll take that criticism on board” you’d recognise it as motivated propaganda misrepresenting the facts to portray British people in a certain way.

The irony!!!!

Well, a bit like the poster yesterday about brown people, noone mentioned organ harvesting until you brought it up
I would have had no idea that was an allegation if you hadn't mentioned it

Which to be perfectly honest doesn't really detract from the fact that repeatedly throughout these threads women who have explicitly identified as Jewish are being told to stop making false accusations of antisemitism or that it's imagined.

Well there is a third option, which is that right wing governments often don't like immigration and that giving "undesirable" women contraception by stealth is by no means a rare practice.

Maybe, just maybe, people are criticising the right wing Israeli government rather than Jewish people/Israel?

When it comes to harm to immigrant women I tend to be quite cynical about "official" explanations. In all cases

Oh please, spare me the duplicitous handwringing. You can stop speaking for Jews as well.

not all jewish people support genocide.
Just absolutely rancid.

Yes it’s an interesting feature of the gyrations to avoid being anti-Semitic- I’m not against Jews, just the Zionist kind. What, like all the Jews who live in Israel and those globally who believe that the state of Israel should exist?

also, being against the Zionist kind of Jews- how do you distinguish? Do they possibly walk around with a Star of David sewn onto their clothing? I suppose you could barcode them, but both of these have been tried before…oh wait.

There was an earlier poster who likened the quote that “we will have peace when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us” to a domestic abuser telling their victim that they make them do it. It’s not even a remotely close analogy- see the reports coming in: Hamas strip all the aid trucks and nothing gets to the civilians. Hamas force their citizens into harms way. So for this, Israel should not attempt to strike back?

for goodness sake, in the wake of 9/11 a twenty year long, $20tn war was fought, encompassing 3 nations. In the wake of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand the First World War was started. In the wake of the German blitz World War Two was started. In the wake of the Gulf of Tonkin incident Vietnam war was started. And the list goes on.

Why are Israel not only expected to not strike back, but they are additionally expected to provide humanitarian aid (which they know ends up with Hamas and not Palestinian civilians) and to keep supplying fuel, water and electricity? It baffles the mind. It’s literally nuts. Gaza has, since 2005, been independent of Israel. It has its own government, it has received billions and billions in aid. It could have created various infrastructure to supply its citizens with the essentials like water, electricity and fuel. All of that could have happened. Yes, Israel controls its border with Gaza, and controls what passes through that border- like every other state in the world. Then, in 2007, Gaza elected a government that swore to wipe Israel off the map. So they blockaded what could go into Gaza in order to provide for their own security. Hamas ran a continual campaign of terror, doing things like using children to bait IDF soldiers (children throw stones/other things at the soldiers, the soldiers chase them to arrest them, and end up in a Hamas ambush), using ordinary civilians as human shields, firing rockets continually at Israel (tens of thousands of rockets) which Israel has developed the Iron Dome to protect themselves from. Here’s an interesting aside: despite its huge success, why has no other country in the world purchased the Iron Dome from Israel?

Because no other country in the world would EVER tolerate having tens of thousands of rockets fired at them and not be allowed to retaliate. No one wants the iron dome because it’s only really suitable for countries that can’t fire back.

Now, pushed past the limits of their patience, they retaliate. And everyone screams foul? It is mind boggling. No serious person can possibly argue that the civilian casualties are the IDFs sole responsibility. I’m sure they could do things better, but overwhelmingly the rate of Palestinian civilian deaths is a factor of the Hamas doctrine of human shields. This is not new to this conflict or even vaguely in doubt- Hamas have been putting civilians in the way of danger since 2007. It’s their principle method of ensuring that all conflict is win-win for them. Either Israel avoids striking to avoid collateral damage (which means Hamas’ ability to operate is not degraded) or Israel strikes kill civilians and degrade Hamas operations, which in turn gives Hamas the propaganda which is currently fuelling the anti-Israel sentiment.

The number of useful idiots in the western world boggles the mind. Feminists, LGBT groups and others like them supporting Hamas who routinely execute those who espouse such things inside Gaza baffles the mind. No one, surely, can be that stupid? But apparently they can. Queers for Palestine boggles the mind when homosexuals in the West Bank are beheaded. You’d think they’d support the liberal and tolerant Israel, but no: useful idiots are, unfortunately, idiots.

The only two conclusions I can reasonably draw are either a) gross stupidity or b) rife anti-semitism. I’m not sure which is more distressing.

@Hiddenmnetter thank you. Brilliant post.

So you are calling me out for saying not all Jewish people support the genocide ? Because that is the truth.
Would you prefer I say all Jewish people support the genocide ? Because that would be a lie.
Which is it ? My friends certainly don’t speak like you. I just sent a text to a friend to ask if I had spoken out of turn, she said “ sounds like they are batshit and spoiling for an argument “

@Hiddenmnetter gosh those Palestinians sound awful and lazy and useless it's probably for the best that Israel is committing genocide against them in that case.

I never implied that. I was responding to someone who did. Comprehension on Mumsnet continues to struggle.

Yep totally what I said. Thank goodness your snarky BS is there to show everyone.

Of course she did.

I see we’ve reached the “some of my best friends are Jewish” stage. Of course these Jewish friends, who definitely exist, all think and behave exactly like you.

I’m calling you out for speaking for and over Jews, which you’re still doing.

@Livinginanotherworld did your friend have any other thoughts on more creative ways you could shoehorn Jewish people and their support, or lack of, for genocide into any more posts? Because you’re on a roll.