Syria

[mids2019]

Has Syria been forgotten and who is to blame for civilian deaths in this region. It is Assad or rebel groups?

(Its a conflict in the middle East with huge civilian casualties but doesn't involve Israel so I guess this thread will for a death)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#:~:text=The%20Syrian%20civil%20war%20(Arabic,sponsored%20and%20non%2Dstate%20actors.

Civilian deaths are huge. The ravaging of the country will take generations to recover if ever, it's an absolute tragedy...I agree this won't get traction because it doesn't involve a certain country.
There are no marches for innocent Syrians.

Worse than that - not only were there no marches but at the height of the civil war the 'progressive' position was just to leave Syrians to it and not intervene or help. Its been a desperately long drawn out tragedy. I don't recall enough of the detail now to say what could/should have been done. I remember Jo Cox was a great advocate for Syria.

@SharonEllis .

Absolutely agree. I remember this (still ongoing) civil war was horrendous in the extreme and involved chemical weapons at one point. I don't remember the protest happening weekly in Lonodkn though (but hey Israel weren't involved so maybe it's diffirent)

Yes chemical weapons used flagrantly.
Horrific.
I don't see an end to that conflict. Well the end will be another dictatorship/ fundamentalist group.
Democracy cannot survive in a place like that.

The Uigars and the Rohingers are all forgotten as is Yemen and the millions of deaths in Sudan are never mentioned. I wonder why?

@Rocknrollstar

Israel wasn't involved?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-22278037

I missed the mass protests against Do when he was in France. Just have been paying attention.

Yes, it’s curious isn’t it?

Sorry Xi in the last post!

I wonder if too too hows a lot of the testimony of Chinese Muslims ???

The difference about Israel is that they are politically close to the UK and US. We sell huge amount of arms to them.
There are many British people living is Israel and many Israelis living in the UK (of course we have Syrians living here, but not to the same extent).
Our histories are tied closely together.
These factors make it different.
(By the way - I'm not saying this is correct, but this is why).
It's not just 'cos Israel' as though they are somehow better, or whatever point you are making.

Has Syria been forgotten

No
Vast number of humanitarian aid agencies on the ground in Syria.
Syrian refugees have been given international protection across the world.
The US and others have military bases in Syria.
There are UN peace keeping missions in Syria.

The general public don't particularly care about civil wars....it's too complicated for them to work out who is the goodie and who is the baddie. They much prefer a clear two horse race where they can pick a side and cheer them on like a football match. If one side is a group they've always secretly hated, even better.

In 2018 ONS said 48,000 Syrians in UK. This figure will be higher now as Syrians continue to arrive.

The Jewish population of the UK is around 277,600. Around 6% have Israeli passports. Thats 16,656 people.

Significantly smaller number.

Uk arms exports to Israel are less than 1% of Israel's arms.

Yes we are allies of Israel, the only democracy in the ME.

This.

The side was picked though. Everyone and majority of democratic nations were against Assad and his regime.

We know all this. The point is about popular support. Ask anyone involved in advocating for Syria over the years - they will tell you how hard it was to get anyone to care. I have had links with people working with refugees for years. They will tell you what a mixed response Syrian refugees get.

I don't think that's any different for any conflict though. The majority of people aren't engaged with anything that doesn't directly effect them.
I'm not in the UK so don't know about the response there but in Ireland there was massive support for Syrian programme refugees.
You're posting on a board specifically about the conflict in the middle east. There's a very small percentage of mumsnetters that post here. Most are not engaged at all.

Yes big support from some for Syrian refugees - you only need a few to get involved to make a difference. But also great opposition and a lot of indifference too.

I'm not talking about support from mumsnetters but from the general population.

@Dulra and the whole point is that it is different for Gaza. No camps, no weekly protests, no mass social media content for months for ANY other conflict. Thats the whole point.

I'm not talking about support from mumsnetters but from the general population.

Mumsnet reflects the general population. There is very little people talking about what's happening in Gaza outside of what they see on the news. It is already moving further down news reports, unless something of significance happens. This is a predictable pattern and with summer coming and a potential general election in UK and presidential election in the US, I've no doubt focus will slip away further. The same happened with Ukraine.

I know there are still marches in London but they will continue because people are protesting against the UK government. There are very few marches in Ireland because the population supports our government's stance on Gaza. The solidarity marches that do take place are small and get little coverage.

Syria and the related refugee crisis got huge coverage. Yes it seems largely forgotten now. I’d ague that Syria was the first war to be played out on social media .

Are you honestly saying that no other crisis has ever attention like this?

The Iraqi war protests were still the biggest in history.

don’t worry soon the camera’s will move on to the next big thing and the Israeli government can go back to committing human rights violations in peace.

I was on tbe big anti Iraq war march that was the 'biggest in history'. We were protesting against our own government actually going to war.

The UK supplies around 1% of Israel's arms. The UK is not directly involved.

Different situations.

In my many decades of engagement with global geopolitics and domestic politics including a lot of protesting and other forms of action I know of no other issue that mobilises people who are not otherwise particularly politically engaged. They pay lip service to caring about Syrians, Uighyurs Rohinga, Yazidi, Kurds, Saudi or Qatari human rights abuses. There us something peculiar about the hysteria around Palestine. In my experience it has a lot to do with their perception of Jews and framing of Israel which they exceptionalise to a frankly weird degree. I am not Jewish so people will say things they wouldnt say to jewish person and I am in no doubt about this.

Thats all I have to say - I have other things to do today.

The UK supplies around 1% of Israel's arms. The UK is not directly involved.

the UK are an ally of Israel. They do have involvement.

I certainly agree some people have jumped on the pro Palestine bandwagon to further their own anti-Semitic agenda. But criticism of Israeli actions is not anti- semitism and dismissing it as so undermines real anti semitism.

That's the point. Uk 'has involvement' with all sorts of countries & issues. Only Israel gets the huge demos, demands of universities, politicians & everyone else to state their position. What other geopolitical crises have led to museums, art galleries & theatres feeling compelled to issue statements?

Criticism of Israel IS antisemitic when Israel is singled out and held to different standards - such as the huge number of UN resolutuons condeming Israel at the UN - more than all other countries combined in 2022.

The General Assembly approved 15 anti-Israel resolutions in 2022 compared to 13 resolutions against others.

6 against Russia & 1 against North Korea, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria, Iran, US.

Saudi Arabia, China, Lebanon, Turkey, Venezuela and Qatar, were not condemned by any resolutions despite all actively involved in human rights abuses &/or regional conflict.
Haven't got the figure for 2023 to hand but its part of a longstanding pattern.

Sometimes you need to call a spade a spade.

Sometimes you need to call a spade a spade.

Not when it's not a spade. You view things though a particular lens but that can often distort your view

Article below is quite balanced and describes why Israel has a poor relationship with the UN and why their assumption that the UN has a negative bias towards Israel is not entirely accurate

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-israel-bias-1.7120895