To wonder how anyone thought what was happening in Gaza was ok?

[march10th]

I see all these threads popping up about outrage about what's going on, especially now the UN and the US have started acknowledging the situation.
AIBU to wonder how people didn't see this from the beginning??

It's been months and thousands of people have been wiped out. As an Arab with close family links to Palestine, I think this is ethnic cleansing, similar to what Western countries have done to the indigenous people of Australia and America.

I think this is probably the closest we will come to agreement! Yes, the terrible thing about this is that, after all the shouting and mud slinging and insults, the majority do just want peace.

Sadly, I agree, I don't see how this can ever come to pass.

The poster clearly indicated she didn't want to engage in a discussion with me, so I've thanked her for replying and respected that.

Fair enough

I have to disagree, it isn’t nonsense, there have been consequences for some people (not all) who have spoken out about what is happening in Palestine. This was especially the case towards the start of the war. I think OP’s concerns are valid, especially as they say they are an Arab with links to Palestine. Unfortunately not everyone is able to accept other peoples views without stereotyping, demonising, or resorting to trying to devalue that actual individual.

You'll be far safer walking round London with a Palestinian flag than you would be with an Israeli one.

Thats the thing, you cant decide my experience is invalid because you cant imagine it happening. When this first started I had my account closed twice, and honestly, all I did was ask the same stuff I'm asking now. I never said anything hateful.

yes. And the Israeli government is not hiding that it wants Palestine for itself. What happens to the people already there? Well, it's what's happening now.

What Hamas did is a result of 70 years of caged-up humans turning into vile monsters. It was disgusting and inhuman. They dont represent the people of Palestine, not one bit. But Israel has used it as an excuse to wipe out everyone that remains.

@march10th it is tough and I'm sorry for what you are going through. I feel I'm in the same boat as you and there's alot I struggle with. I was one who always envisioned a two state solution and a future of peace but as each day goes by, its more and more difficult to see it actually happening
Gaza has been destroyed. Whole generations traumatised. Everyone has lost someone, thousands of children dead and thousands more injured and there's no end in sight.

I ask this with the desire to understand... are you personally Jewish or Israeli? In my head I see you are not wanting to see the other side, and I just want to understand why.

I dont feel safe wearing a Palestinian scarf or anything with a flag/watermelon.

Neither

You consider deliberately starving an entire people a just war?

That confuses me even more. Why can't you see the other side then? Palestine was thriving when my grandparents lived there. My parents had to leave by the skin of their teeth to neighbouring Arab states where they were second-class citizens. They raised us with all they could. They'll never go back to their homes or their land. And they have it better than those who are still there, living in a literal open prison for decades. We have jobs, food, warmth, and comfort. Although most refugees who left Palestine and are living in arab countries are undocumented and 'stateless', most are without passports (unless they managed to obtain Western passports through immigration).

Do you not see that the Palestinians opened up their country to refugees, who then went on to slowly take over and build a country with one of the most intense militaries in the region, while the Palestinians became rock-throwing refugees in their own country?

I don’t accept that is what is happening. Neither that the civilian deaths are deliberate. Individual soldiers committing misconduct is not the same as saying that the Israelis as a whole deliberately target civilians. I see Hamas for what they are though - they are jihadists and hold to an ideology that hates Jews (we know this because jihadism is a global problem and not Gaza-specific).

I don’t accept that. The Jewish people are also indigenous to that land - they are not refugees who took it over. But I fear this could start an even bigger debate!

Dont you see that what Israel is doing to the people of Palestine is the same as what was done to them in WW2?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/jared-kushner-gaza-waterfront-property-israel-negev

No. There is no proper comparison with the Holocaust.

6 million people were murdered. Put onto cattle trucks and gassed.

No. It's not the same.

Do you dispute that before WW2 Isreal didn't exist? and it was created in 1948 as a land within the already established Palestine?

where the death toll is now estimated at 32,000, while uncounted thousands of other Palestinian people remain buried under rubble. Seventy percent of the victims, a UN committee found, have been children and women

As Raz Segal – an Israeli-American associate professor of genocide and Holocaust studies – , Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is unique “in the sense of discussing it as what I think it is – that is, genocide – because the intent is so clearly articulated. And it’s articulated throughout Israeli media and society and politics.”

Israel existed as a kingdom in the ancient world. Palestine was never an established state - it was part of various empires and then was a British mandate before 1948. The UN partitioned it into two states which the Arabs rejected. But we can all read up on the history.

Unfortunately it doesn’t matter whether you accept or not, the evidence is there that it is happening. Just as the evidence is there that it is not a few rogue soldiers targeting civilians.

In the first few months of Israel’s bombing campaign, they dropped thousands of 2,000 pound dumb bombs - unguided missiles that were capable of killing and maiming people up to 1’000 feet away. In a highly populated area which they knew would be full of hundreds of children. And yet they dropped them anyway, not knowing where they would land. So the evidence is there, maybe you just don’t want to see it?

Benjamin Netanyahu twice “invoked the Biblical story of the total destruction of Amalek”, declaring: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.” A later passage in the Bible leaves no doubt for interpretation: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” This was no throwaway comment. Consider the unprecedented slaughter of Palestinian children – or “infants and sucklings” – and note that six days after invoking Amalek in a national address, Netanyahu referred to it again in a letter to army soldiers and officers.