Israel supporting counter marches in London - about time

[mids2019]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13304895/Met-Police-arrest-Palestine-Israel-march-London-protest-Gaza.html

I think in a democracy this is absolutely necessary. Obviously policing will be important but it is good to see that in terms of street protest this is not a come sided issue.

I wonder how many are going to be arrested losing their rag seeing Israeli flags an masse after getting themselves riled up calling for a ceasefire.....

Sorry, I always forget to link. My last post was comment on @KestrelMoon calling Tel Quasile a 'Palestinian city'

I am in my 60's. My grandparents always talked about Falastine ( the way we say it in Arabic) when I was a child. They didn't suddenly start calling it that in the 60's. This way of thinking is new. I did not hear this before the 7th October. Can you show me the evidence

The Israelis chose not to define themselves as Palestinians- so why can’t the people who want the state of Palestine to still exist in some form?

How about calling them exiles and children of exiles of the state formally know as Palestine? 😖

I really can’t believe that Palestinians are now even being told how to define themselves!

Always. All my life.

I know, they don't seem to be allowed have any agency whatsoever

I think it causes a lot of confusion that the word 'Palestinian' is used both for the region and also for the modern-day Palestinians,
Confusion for who?

It's a new argument that emerged in the 1980s, based on Joan Peters throughly debunked thesis that Palestine was a barren land without a people and modern day Palestinians mostly emigrated after European Jews developed the area thus making the ethnic cleansing that occurred during the Nakba not that bad.

It's often repeated by people who are at best uninformed or at worst deliberately spreading misinformation.

https://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/legacy-peters-immemorial/

For people who use the word Palestinian when describing people pre-1948 and meaning exclusively Palestinian Arabs, excluding Palestinian Jews.

@Bellehathor Thank you

I have never heard of anyone else being confused so it may just be you. Not everyone understands what happened in the region but that has nothing to do with the name and to claim the word Palestinian is a problem is offensive to Palestinians imo.

Eg @KestrelMoon calling Tel Quasile a 'Palestinian city'.

Do you categorise it in that way too?

If so, is that because it's a city in the geographical area Palestine - or Falastine as @BibiSuzanne says her grandparents called it? Or because it was created by the people who we call Palestinians now?

I've often heard d people say 'Palestine belongs to the Palestinians', implying that the land must belong to them because they have that name. I think it's important to think clearly.

@statsfun
There were Palestinian Jews. As in Palestinians who followed Judaism. As there were Muslim Palestinians and Christian Palestinian. All spoke Arabic and considered themselves Falastini'een.

We don't claim it because of the name. Don't be ridiculous. We claim it because we lived there. My ancestors lived there. It was our homeland. We farmed the land. My grandfather's family were farmers in Haifa for generations.

Right. So you can't talk about Palestinians in that context and implicitly link them exclusively to the people we call Palestinians now, excluding the Palestinian Jews - whose descendents (and some older people who were there) are now Israeli.

Which is what @KestrelMoon was doing when she said that Tel Aviv was built on the ruins of Tel Qasile, a Palestinian city and that this is echoed in what is happening in the WB. It's deliberately misleading.

A minority of the Israeli population are descendants of Palestinian Jews. Let's be clear.

Of course. But the name is sometimes used to mislead people who don't really think about it. That's what I object to.

Not sure whether @KestrelMoon was a victim or was deliberately misleading.

Have you really never heard people say 'Palestine belongs to the Palestinians' subtext 'the clue's in the name'?

I have.

It's simplistic, and doesn't help anyone.

No. What else can they say? Palestine belongs to the people who lived there before a group of people came from Europe and turfed them out?

Why can English people say England belongs to the English? Or French people say France belongs to the French? No one accuses them of a subtext.

Everything I , as a Palestinian, say is subject to scrutiny. Why?

@BibiSuzanne because some people are racist, prejudiced or manipulated by the media to the point that they've stopped seeing Palestinians as people. And I'm sorry that you're experiencing this. It is wrong and I hope one day people realise and feel deeply ashamed of their actions and inactions.

@statsfun what is it about @BibiSuzanne's posts that bother you so much? She has stated that she is a Palestinian woman. I suspect she knows more about why Palestinians consider Palestine home than most people here.

To address some of the things you've criticised or suggested were misleading...

You've gone with the assumption that the way something is written and pronounced in English today is how it's always pronounced. The world has many languages, and words can be spelled and pronounced differently in different languages. This is hardly a complex concept. Children learning languages at school can cope with that without going with the lazy options of 'or however so-and-so says it'.

I'm not sure why you would find it misleading to say that Tel Aviv was built on top of the site of previous settlements/cities. That's true for many places, including in the UK.

People who live in a region often have a name for their nationality which links linguistically with the name of their home region. Eg: English, French, Russian, Egyptian. It's not some weird conspiracy or marketing ploy.

Palestinians should have a land that is theirs, free from occupation and recognised internationally. At the moment, the Occupied Territories cannot be considered truly theirs, due to, you know, being under occupation.

I’m sorry that your family heritage is being scrutinised in this way. I think that must be very upsetting.

Right, right, because you don’t do that anywhere right?
I don’t see anyone refusing to condemn children being killed; maybe if you bothered to look into it more you’d realise most posters regardless of where their sympathies lie are against innocents being killed. Should I ask if you condemn the children and young people killed on the 7th?
or shall I make a sweeping generalisation that you’re A-ok with that because you’re pro Palestine?
Oh and then the beauty of comparing Gideon Falter to Tommy Robinson. Perhaps examine the notion of shameful behaviour and where you may embody that.
And just a heads up, Tommy Robinson’s lot are not welcomed by any British Jews. They have no love for Jewish people as exemplified in the past they just clearly hate Muslims more today. Neither of which is acceptable.

@ChalkWitch actually, there's a lot of talk online about the deaths of innocent people being 'unavoidable collateral damage', being justified as 'they were probably terrorists anyway', and minimised as mattering less because of their ethnicity. I've even seen people expressing that the child injured by Iranian missile debris mattered less because of her ethnicity.

You really think someone saying "England is for the English" wouldn't raise eyebrows?

And I have seen similar regarding Israeli deaths (shouldn’t have been partying on stolen land, what do you expect, Hamas are resistance fighters, the hostages deserved it)and Jewish people being targeted because of the Israeli govt. It’s abhorrent to minimise the death and suffering of any ethnicity but I don’t think @Mags48 feels that way.

But this constant tit for tatting gets us nowhere; deliberately provocative posts insinuating that posters that are not pro-Palestine therefore excuse the killing of children is not only offensive but also an example of @Mags48 making their own sweeping generalisations. Suggesting that British Jewish people stand with the likes of Tommy ‘yes, I’m stupid’ Robinson is downright offensive. Once more, a sweeping judgement and stereotyping of behaviour, just the thing @Mags48 finds shameful in others but apparently it’s fine if they’re the one doing it.