Why do people think anti-isreal is the same as anti-semetic?

[enenenya]

Just that. If I was anti-Iran, it is never called anti-Islamic.

There is support? Yes
there is vast support like some posters have said? Not sure
shall we kill 30k people and injure another 70k because some support Hamas?

Not sure
shall we kill 30k people and injure another 70k because some support Hamas?

I literally just said I didn't think that.

But I don't see what good it does to not face up to the fact that there is support for Hamas there. It is one of many reasons why the whole ME situation is so complex and why i feel that the outlook is pretty bleak (incidentally I am Jewish and many of the reasons for my pessimism also lie firmly in Israel's camp).

@Dulra the article you linked showed 34% support for Hamas as a political party, and 70% satisfaction with Hamas war effort.

That's not low support!

Here in the UK, Labour have 47% support as a political party in the polls, and that's considered likely to result in a Labour landslide.

70% satisfaction with Hamas military is pretty overwhelming.

The article says that support for armed struggle (in Gaza and West Bank combined) has dropped from 63% to 46%, driven largely by Palestinians in Gaza. But most Gazans must desperately want the war and horror to just stop, and that drop may reflect that very understandable short term desire.

This doesn't mean that Gazans deserve any of the destruction of war. They are civilians.

But we have to recognize that a large proportion of those civilians support Hamas. This seems to cause cognitive dissonance, and many on here seem to want to deny it. Because Hamas are terrorists - the atrocities they have committed and said they intend to commit again - and we can't reconcile Palestinians who we have categorised as innocent victims with support for terrorism.

But there's no point in pretending that this conflict is simple. You can't create a peace by pretending that things are as you would like them to be rather than as they are.

I mean why would you expect the average Palestinian to not support Hamas given the history ?

Expectations are pointless. But it is sad. Because it harms the Palestinians themselves - with this war, and with the ever-receding possibility of a 2-state solution.

And does it matter, ethically?
If the population of Gaza was entirely composed of Satan worshippers, it would still be wrong to kill 11,000 children in response to the 7/10 Hamas attacks

But we have to recognize that a large proportion of those civilians support Hamas
I'm sorry but 750 people in Gaza were surveyed and I personally would query the legitimacy of any polls conducted in a war zone when people have been bombed, murdered and starved for the previous 4 months. I certainly don't think you can compare it to polls in the UK. I posted a previous article conducted before October which had different results. Some stats are:

Even though Hamas won a plurality of votes in 2006 legislative elections in both Gaza and the West Bank, the Arab Barometer’s findings make it clear that the terrorist group had fallen well out of favor before the October 7 attacks.

I will say again I find all of this speculation pretty unpleasant in light of what Gazans are currently enduring.

This

Also it may be a case of better the devil you know. What alternative is being offered? Israel....

The Palestinians have been terrorised for decades, and not by Hamas

A friend of mine has done charity work for at least the last decade with Palestinians in the occupied territories. I won't say exactly where as it would be outing. She has seen first hand the treatment of the Palestinians by the settlers.

One family were living in a darkened room with all the shutters closed due to the harassment from the settlers who would constantly throw human excrement in their back yard. One family had all their cattle killed, olive trees burnt down, their only source of income destroyed. Other families forced out of them home after being threatened with death and the settlers do it because they know they have the full support of the government.

Most families have several family members who have been murdered by the IDF. I have a video from a Kindergarten where they provided books etc about 8 years ago. This is now pocked marked with bullet holes, inside is destroyed and this was prior to the 7th October. In the video the children and singing and dancing to a popular English childrens song. Their dear sweet faces. When looking at the video 8 years on, my friend can point out several children who have either died or whose sibling has been arrested or killed by the IDF - PRIOR to 7th October. Nothing can excuse what Hamas did but I have to be honest with myself. If the only experience I had with Israeli's is what I described above - would I think well of them? Offer them good grace? I doubt it. My child was once bullied at school and the anger I had was immense. I cannot begin to contemplate the anger and hatred I would feel if I experienced what the Palestinians do, while being told by the international community pretty much' get over it'.

I read the posts on here with interest. Israel is commiting plausible genocide, they are breaking international laws and they don't care - they carry on regardless. The tiktoks of IDF soldiers in Gaza and disgusting. The number of Palestinian deaths in such a short space of time is nothing short of horrific. What happened on the 7th October was unspeakable, but likewise any one who excuses what is happening in gaza with with 'but this' and 'but that' has a moral compass seriously out of whack.

I’m not sure how this thread ended up in a discussion where some are perhaps implying that Palestinian civilians aren’t innocent, or in some way deserve what is happening to them.

Even if for all the reasons already stated, some adults in Gaza support Hamas, does this mean they deserve to die?

And if we were to turn this around, then are civilians in Israel who support their own government also guilty?

In some ways we are all responsible for the hideous things that happen in this world, but real power in situations like this is usually held by a minority who are calling the shots, who are meant to, but often don’t, act in a way that benefits the majority.

Large populations can be encouraged to believe in terrible ideas, especially when there’s very little else for them to believe in.

At what point do we say that civilians with very little power and no sight to viable alternatives lose their right to live? Surely the criteria for losing your right to life should be more than having been born in Gaza.

I don’t believe anyone is saying or implying that Gazans deserve to die, that would be monstrous.

It is rather the observation that launching the most murderous attack on Israelis since the Holocaust was going to inevitably lead to retribution on a horrendous scale. Particularly given that Hamas have since doubled down on their vow to repeat October 7 again and again until the State of Israel no longer exists.

It wasn’t inevitable.
It wasn’t necessary.
It was a choice made by the Israeli government in the knowledge that they could get away with carnage before their American paymasters started to worry about Public opinion.

Are you saying that Hamas are not using civilians / hospitals etc as shields because it’s pretty well documented that that’s exactly what they are doing.

As has been noted before, the Gaza Strip is tiny - 25 miles long and about 7 miles wide, with a population of over 2 million. It is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, so yes, Hamas are inevitably operating amongst civilians, but you can’t tell me that a state which has one of the best funded, most connected and most effective intelligence communities in the world can’t take out Hamas operatives without blanket bombing the civilians. I don’t believe it. Complete bs on the part of the Israeli government, which is moving towards the eradication of the Palestinians in plain sight.

Israel is not only for Jews - Christians, Muslims, atheists etc reside there.
Jews don't only live in Israel either.

This is the problem isn't it? What Israel are doing is retribution. It isn't trying to rid Gaza of Hamas, it is an occupying power inflicting punishment on those that they choose to occupy. Like you say it's revenge on a horrendous scale, mass killings, starvation and the taking down of anyone like aid agencies and humanitarian workers who get in their way.

Antisemitism means the hatred towards and prejudice against Jewish people alone. The word antisemitism is taken from 'antisemitismus', a pseudo-scientific name for Jew hatred. This term was coined by a German journalist, Wilhelm Marr in around 1879. He and others, believed that all Jews belonged to 'the Semitic race'. However, Semitic does not refer to a group of people, but is a linguistic term that refers to a group of languages traditionally spoken in the Middle East and parts of Africa, including Amharic, a language spoken in Ethiopia, as well as Hebrew and Arabic.

Ever wondered why there are so few Jews in Ireland?

De Valera ignored his close friend's pleas to let in his family before WW2, then he went and paid condolences to the German Ambassador upon the death of Hitler.

He was either an idiot or evil or just didn't care about Jews. (His government were happy to let in Christian victims of Nazi persecution).

Not sure the irish government has changed that much.

Ever wondered why there are so few Jews in Ireland?
Nope, if you knew Ireland you'd know up to very recently there was very few of anyone but Irish in Ireland. We were a country of emigrants not immigrants.

He was either an idiot or evil or just didn't care about Jews. (His government were happy to let in Christian victims of Nazi persecution).
He wasn't evil but yes possibly an idiot and naive. Ireland was a very new state, only gained independence from Britain in 1937 and a republic in 1949. De Valera created a very catholic constitution and as a nation we swapped rule from Britain to the Catholic church.

Not sure the irish government has changed that much.
Why?

But Jews are not just an ethnic group are they?

You can convert from Catholicism, and be given all the rights to the land as if you were ethnically linked to a land you or your entire lineage has no connection to? How does that work?

Considering that MANY Palestinians are Canaanites and likely ethnically and religiously Jewish but converted to Islam or Christianity 14 hundred years ago (to avoid paying high taxes) but they're not allowed the right to return right? Even though many have been expelled (WHO HAD NOTHING TO DO with the Holocaust btw ) in our waking memory?
how does this make sense? But if you were expelled over 2000yrs ago YOU DO have the right to return??

The Israeli govt use ethnicity and religion when it suits them to bump up the population. It's numbers. Nothing more. They treat many sectors of Israelis like shit. There is discrimination in Israel amongst Israeli and Jewish groups.

One day the world will look back at the ridiculousness of this discrimination.

It's not complicated. Call it out for what it is, take accountability and move on and come up with a viable solution, but to gaslight an entire population is getting old.

"No such thing as a Palestinian- Just Arabs"- Highly reductive, offensive and dehumanising.
"No one should have the right of return. THE IRONY"- The amount of times I heard that Palestinian refugees can just stop being refugees and CTRL ALT DEL where they came from and the reason why they're refugees, to seemingly just accept another nationality and 'just get on with it' is offensive
"Yeah but can't you just fuck off somewhere else?" They have, literally fucked off AGAINST their will
"But where would all Jews go?". Nowhere, they stay and accept they mix with the rest of the population and accept that no one is that special to need to segregate themselves. Worked for a v long time before us Brits shat on it.
"Arabs don't want peace. They declined every proposal" Oh the proposals where you end up legalising what you are doing oh Govt? And no right of return?

"But no one was living in British mandate of Palestine at the time"- Ignorant and propagandist.
"But this is the promised land"- Don't even get me started-By God or the Brits?

"Israel is the ONLY democracy in the ME"- the govt that kind that lies, dehumanises and discriminates, segregates and treats people like shit. What kind of democracy does this?

"But Hamas-" Yes Hamas must go. But 1948/1949/1950/1951/1952/1953/1954/1955/196/1958/1960/1961/1962/1963/1964/1965/1966/1967/1968/1969/1970/1971/1972/1973/1974/1975/1976/1977/1978/1979/1980/1981/1982/1983/1984/1985/1986/1987 HAMAS FORMED
1988/1989/1990/1991/1992/1993/1994/1995/1996/1997/1998/1999/2000/2001/2002/2003/2004/2005/2006/2007/2008/2009/2010/2011/2012/2013/2014/2015/2016/2017/208/2019/2020/2021/2022/2023.
"October 7th"
"You can't trust the numbers, as they're published by Hamas" 1 civilian death is too many, but DENYING numbers are we?

So what exactly are you saying?

and?

The OP's wording is not helping however.

Most people currently are not anti-Israel- but anti what Netanyahu, the IDF, is doing to Palestinians. And what they have been doing to them since 1948.

Most would be anti what they are doing, whatever their creed or nationality, because it is abhorrent, inhumane, and akin to genocide.

Christ, not another faux naïf disingenuous thread

@orangeblosssom No one is saying it is though are they? They’re pointing out that Israel is the only Jewish state. Have a little think about why that might be.

There have been posters on here saying that the only reason not to nuke Gaza AND the West Bank is that Israel wouldn’t then be able to settle there as the land would be contaminated.

They have been swiftly deleted, but they do exist.

(I’m quite happy to believe there have been similar things said by antisemitic posters too, there have been a lot of appalling comments deleted over the past six months)