Support for Palestine at Glastonbury

[Finallyloggedin]

Daman Albarn

https://x.com/damonunofficial/status/1806744107181642172?s=61&t=nilGqPeurpC5xVqZAZdZog

When people have hope, a future for their kids they are less concerned with hate and they focus on living.

This is true and in highlighting the extremism that characterises Palestinian society, I did not mean to suggest that things cannot be different. We already know that they can because there are two million Arab citizens of Israel, the vast majority of whom are not violent and most favour coexistence with Jews. There is no need for the Palestinian cause to be as violent and irredentist as it is. It is a choice, encouraged by many in the West, to continue believing that they can keep re-prosecuting the 1948 war until they get a different outcome. When all it does is strengthen the irredentists on the Israeli side.

Yes. They also ignore how it is Israel that has been destroying Palestine and have been quite open about expelling the Palestinians. Daniella Weiss's interview about creating a humanitarian crises in Gaza so that the surrounding countries take them in, allowing Israel to take all of Gaza. Ben Gvir also made a speech about expelling all the Palestinians from Gaza. But despite all of this, it's the Palestinians who are the problem somehow, not the Israel. 🙄

Love what Chris Martin said in his loving message ro Israel tonight

This exactly

What the fuck have I just read?? The best solution would be to annex the land with settlements on the West Bank.? You mean the ILLEGAL settlements.

Yes, given the impracticality of uprooting 500,000 Jewish settlers from the West Bank, incorporating some of the larger settlements into Israel, rather than into a future Palestinian state which won't want them anyway, seems like the best solution. Land swaps which compensate the Palestinians for settlements were proposed in the peace talks of 2000 and 2008, and would inevitably feature in any future peace deal, so you might have to calm down a bit about what the fuck you just read.

Some settlements might have to be evacuated, as the Gazan ones were, but IMO it would be preferable for at least some to be incorporated into any future Palestinian state, so that it has a significant Jewish minority. Israel has a large Arab minority and this has only been positive in discouraging inter-ethnic violence by helping Jews and Arabs to see each other as human beings with whom they have to get along. It puzzles me that many leftists - who love to accuse Israel of 'Apartheid' - take it for granted that a Palestinian state in the West Bank should by rights not include any Jews.

Jews lived in the West Bank for centuries before the Jordanian army ethnically cleansed them in the 1948 war. There were 500+ years-old Jewish communities in Hebron and Jerusalem (where they were the majority) which were completely destroyed, first by Arab pogroms, then by the Jordanian army, which also destroyed almost all of the synagogues in the Old City and uprooted and desecrated millennia-old Jewish cemeteries. (Something that people outraged about 'stolen land' never seem to know or care about.) In a comprehensive peace settlement, there is no reason Jews shouldn't live in the West Bank again, provided of course that they are willing to respect their Palestinian neighbours and live in a Palestinian state if that's where the borders end up being drawn.

My overall point is not that we shouldn't be outraged about the land-grabbing the Israeli government has been engaged in for the past 20-odd years, or about the racist and belligerent settlers, or some of the accompanying policies that are obviously designed to demoralise the Palestinians and encourage them to leave. It's that the simplistic narrative the left has been propagandising - that there was a country called 'Palestine' that was stolen from the Arabs by the Jews, and the Jews are to blame for everything that's happened since - is both untrue and counterproductive to achieving lasting peace.

I am a Palestinian with family in Haifa and Nazareth. We call ourselves Palestinian not Arab. Yes, the vast majority of them aren't 'violent' ( just like the vast majority living under occupation btw) because they remained on their land, have jobs and can function relatively normally. But don't delude people that they live as equally as the Jewish Israeli population.
What is it you want the occupied Palestinians to do? Give up? This violence you speak about is reaction and resistance to occupation.
The fact that we have been resisting since 1948 shows how wrong this whole situation is.
Back to the topic though; this reminds me that in October to December, nobody was able to comment on the Palestinian deaths without having to 'condemn Hamas'. Now people aren't allowed to show support, sympathy whatever without also mentioning the Nova festival
deaths? Good. Let's mention them because that massacre was atrocious ( please also don't forget that the IDF contributed to the numbers killed). It works both ways.
How refreshing it's going to be from now on to see Mumsnetters referring to the unnecessary, gruesome murder of 40,000 Palestinians every time they discuss the horrific Nova massacre.

Don't you dare tell me to calm down. You are proposing theft of more Palestinian land and I, as a Palestinian, am supposed to accept it. Shouldn't it be that ALL the illegal settlers go back to Israel?

Well said! I would also like to see it work both ways. If we couldn't mention the atrocities being committed against the Palestinians without condemning Hamas/ October 7th, then Israel supporters shouldn't be able mention October 7th without also condemning the IDF, acknowledging the 40,000 (at least) dead Palestinians in Gaza AND the 76 years of brutal occupation the Palestinians have suffered. Fair is fair.

This is a disgusting post. Victim blaming, "It doesn't need to be this way, it's a choice....". Have you forgotten these "violent" people are under a brutal occupation? That children are dying of starvation every day, being shot in the head for being the wrong ethnicity? The idea that if they simply stopped being violent then there would be peace is laughable. Please wake up and allow yourself to acknowledge what is happening.

I'm so sorry this has happened to your people and I really pray for an end to the occupation and suffering and wish that the Palestinians can self determine, free from oppression.

BibiSuzanne- I am so sorry you have to deal with so much racism here. It's horrific how you have to deal with this on-top of the oppression inflicted on you/your people and the genocide against the your in Gaza. 🫂

What is it you want the occupied Palestinians to do? Give up?

Yes, I expect them to give up their dream of destroying Israel and accept a two-state solution, which has been on offer several times in the past and will hopefully be on offer again someday, once the Palestinians show that their political aspirations are best represented by someone other than a racist, murderous organisation like Hamas. No other people who started a war and then lost it are allowed to keep endlessly re-prosecuting that same war. No other people who were displaced in the geopolitical upheavals that followed the Second World War have inherited refugee status passed down from their great-grandparents (! ) The ethnic Germans who were expelled from what became Czechslovakia were expected to get on with it, as were the millions of refugees created by the partition of India and Pakistan. Not to mention the 800,000 Jews who were forced to leave Arab-majority countries.

The original UN partition plan was IMO a reasonable deal for the Arabs of Palestine, given that they had no exisiting state there nor any system of governance. (Arabs is how they described themselves at the time, 'Palestinians', a linguistic flex which implies that all of Mandatory Palestine rightfully belonged to them, came later). It wasn't a great deal, perhaps, but it offered them the chance of sovereignty for the first time ever, and was a lot more than what was offered to some of the other populations who were also agitating for a piece of the former Ottoman Empire (the Assyrians and the Kurds got nothing). And above that, it was a solution designed to prevent massive bloodshed, given that the leaders of the Arabs had told the Peel Commission in 1937 that they were not prepared to tolerate 400,000 Jews living within any putative 'one-state solution'. The British genuinely feared that, based on events like the Hebron massacre and the 1936 Arab Revolt, once they left, there would be mass ethnic slaughter, most of it directed by the Arab majority against the Jewish minority. (The Peel Commission explicitly referenced the recent massacres and expulsions of the Assyrians by the Arabs in Iraq, stating that they feared this would happen to the Jews in an Arab-majority state in Palestine.) Hence, the two-state solution.

The Arabs (acting as a five-army, pan-Arab force) rejected the partition plan and invaded the newly formed Israel because they believed they could easily defeat the Jews and get the whole land for themselves. That turned out to be a miscalculation and lead to huge numbers of Arabs fleeing Israel and becoming refugees. It's a tragedy and their descendants are justified in feeling aggrieved about it and the atrocities committed during the war by some Jewish militias, but the fact remains that the Palestinian refugee crisis was a direct result of a war that was started by the Arabs with the express intent of killing or expelling all the Jews. Sorry, I just don't agree with the Palestinian narrative that the whole land was rightfully theirs and they are only ever the victims, nor with the anti-Zionist view that Jews alone among all Levantine peoples had no right to establish any sovereignty in the Levant.

In any case, Israel exists now, and can only be dismantled by way of a devastating war that would probably turn nuclear, so I can't understand how so many people are so single-mindedly convinced that the destruction of Israel, rather than the establishment of a Palestine state beside Israel, is the righteous path to pursue. If the Palestinian cause were focused on protesting the land-theft via settlements and establishing a sovereign state in the West Bank, I think most of the world would be behind them, and so would many Israelis. But even 'peaceful' Palestinian movements like BDS refuse to work with Israeli groups like Standing Together who oppose the settlements in the West Bank, saying this amounts to 'normalisation'. Well yeah. What's wrong with normalising working across ethnic and religious lines in pursuit of a common goal? Unless your real goal is not stopping or dismantling the settlements, but the long-awaited conquest of the people you are refusing to 'normalise' with.

Except that there are huge numbers of Palestinians who do want to destroy Israel. And, crucially, they are backed by Iran who want to destroy Israel. Regardless of the rights & wrongs of the past the creation of a Palestinian state will happen in that context. The people who do want to destroy Israel wont suddenly play nice (why do you think they spent the last 20 years building those tunnels?). @Shutupaboutthesun may or may not be right but they are talking far more realistically than anyone else about the sort of processes and strategic relationships that will be necessary for this to happen.

I think what is hard to take on all sides is the level of compromise that will be needed. Sometimes those are short term compromises which might feel really really painful, like ceding land in one area for land in another, for longer term peace and security.

Arabs is not what we described ourselves at the time. Yes we came under Greater Syria and the Ottoman Empire. But that was how it was in the Middle East. But we were a people living there calling ourselves Palestinians. Do not lie about that. Just because we didn't have an official state does not take away the fact we owned and farmed land and owned and built houses on land that we had lived on for centuries. Some of us may come from the original canaanites, philistines, Jews, Romans whatever ( my DNA results place me in that region). So we have every right to be there.
I had one mumsnetter tell me that my family moved into the West Bank, like all occupied Palestinians, from 'Arabia' in 1967 once we saw how the Israelis made the land flourish???? And that we only called ourselves Palestinians because Yasser Arafat 'coined the phrase'

Your people in Gaza. Sorry for the typo. Of course I can't edit it now, lol!

I had one mumsnetter tell me that my family moved into the West Bank, like all occupied Palestinians, from 'Arabia' in 1967 once we saw how the Israelis made the land flourish???? And that we only called ourselves Palestinians because Yasser Arafat 'coined the phrase'

I'm sorry you've had to put up with such ignorance OP.

@10UsernamesNotAvailableTryAnotherOne
"Well said! I would also like to see it work both ways. If we couldn't mention the atrocities being committed against the Palestinians without condemning Hamas/ October 7th, then Israel supporters shouldn't be able mention October 7th without also condemning the IDF, acknowledging the 40,000 (at least) dead Palestinians in Gaza AND the 76 years of brutal occupation the Palestinians have suffered. Fair is fair."

I completely agree and I'm so sorry for what you and your family are having to go through @BibiSuzanne.

poshsnobtwit I don't share your view that the Palestinians have no agency and the Jews are the only rational empowered actors in the conflict. That isn't victim blaming, it's assigning equal moral weight to Arab actions as I would to those of Jews, while understanding that both peoples are trapped to large extent by tragic historical forces that they did not create.

For instance, pre-October 7, Gaza had not been under occupation since 2005. Israel and Egypt did introduce a blockade after Hamas was elected in 2007, but imposing a blockade on a hostile territory that is firing rockets at your civilian population is not an occupation. Hamas had total control of the Gaza strip, suffice to say that if the Israelis were actually occupying it, there's no way Hamas would have been able to build 500km of tunnels there, let alone assemble a 40,000 strong Iranian-armed military force that is bigger than many European armies. Turning the first bit of territory they actually controlled into a base from which to attack Israel was a decision taken by Palestinians. Building their military installations under schools, hospitals and mosques so as to deliberately turn the civilian population of Gaza into military targets was a decision taken by Palestinians - a particularly diabolical one that I'm shocked the world has not formalised as a war crime in itself. Let's hope that insurgent groups and amoral regimes the world over do not copy this tactic.

People who think that the Israelis are responsible for their own actions AND also responsible for the Palestinians' actions have a very skewed view of the conflict, IMO. Every barbarous action of the Palestinians is simply further proof in their eyes of how bad the Jews are. Look at them, what truly terrible people they must be, to provoke the Palestinians into doing such terrible things to them. The leftist oppressor/oppressed framework that the stronger party is always to blame and the weaker one is always the victim is something I will never understand. You have to distort the humanity of both peoples to make it make even a little bit of sense.

In any case it seems clear the Palestinians don't see themselves as the weaker party, not really. Temporarily weaker militarily, but zoom out and you'll see the conflict as the Palestinians see it: as a contest between 7 million Jews and 450 million Arabs. That's why they say stuff like 'the end of the Zionist entity is a mathematical certainty'. That's why they have never felt the need to compromise on their demand for the whole of the land.

To many people it seems, the extreme savagery of the October 7 massacre, the sexual violence, the beheadings with blunt implements, the targeting of even infants and the elderly, was an expression of the desperation of the Palestinians and further confirmation of their extreme oppression. To me, it is an example of what Arab Muslims have been doing to their enemies for centuries, which is part of the reason why Arab Muslims now dominate the entire MENA region despite being indigenous to only a small part of it (the Arabian Peninsula). The Palestinian cause as expressed by Hamas seems to be essentially an extension of the Arab conquest (in spite of the fact that many Palestinians have Jewish and Samaritan ancestry), and again, I don't get what is progressive about this. Obviously supporting the Palestinians as people deserving of life and human rights is not the same as supporting their IMO currently indefensible political goals, but you don't hear Pro-Palestine supporters saying that, do you? Most can't even bring themselves to condemn Hamas's actions, let alone critique Hamas's ideology as part of the problem.

@shutupaboutthesun there is so much that is wrong in your posts. Just one point, it is absolutely incorrect that the Palestinians did not call themselves that and instead just used the term 'Arab'. That is simply put, just part of the fierce propaganda used by those who attemp to erase and re-write the Palestinian identity. What do you think the Jerusalem Post was called before it changed it's name? Golda Meir was a Jewish Palestinian. Before the state of Israel was created, whether you were Jewish, Christian or Muslim, anyone who lived there was considered a Palestinian.

@BibiSuzanne just ignore the attempted revisionist propaganda.

@BibiSuzanne I'm sorry you're having to read such awful things. The overwhelming message from Glastonbury has been one of peace, love and support for the innocent people of Palestine.

I echo this BibiSuzanne apologies for the Racism and evil, hurtful comments. Supremacist's just can't help it.

Be heartened though, the whole world now sees clearly precisely what Palestinians have had to endure from their occupiers.

Fantasies like that PP are based on the old Status Quo which no longer exists, Gvir and his sorts can wax lyrical about annexing land but they won't be allowed to on any big scale, because that means War in the region, real war fought for the first time in Israel in decades. America does not want that (hence repeatedly sending the CIA director to the region) and is not equipped to fight.
So let the fantasist, fantasise.

I understand your anger at the racism and oppression the Palestinians have faced but I don’t think the post that offended you was meant to be offensive.

I don’t agree with everything @Shutupaboutthesun is saying but I do think that the reality is some compromises and sacrifices will have to be made for the sake of peace. It will not be possible for all the injustices to be put right and it will not be possible for all the stolen land to be returned.

As @Shutupaboutthesun has said - millions of people were displaced after WW1 and great suffering was caused.
In the end it is better to look forward to a better future rather than backwards at the pain and suffering.
I realise I might sound glib but the past is the past and nothing can be done about it. The children of Palestine deserve a future .

there are two million Arab citizens of Israel, the vast majority of whom are not violent and most favour coexistence with Jews. There is no need for the Palestinian cause to be as violent and irredentist as it is.

What do you mean by this statement? Because to me it reads that you are suggesting the Palestinians living in Israel are now not violent and that can be achieved for all Palestinians? Are you suggesting all Palestinians are inherently violent? This is racist dehumanising language so I just want to clarify if that is what you meant?

The leftist oppressor/oppressed framework that the stronger party is always to blame and the weaker one is always the victim is something I will never understand. You have to distort the humanity of both peoples to make it make even a little bit of sense.
I agree entirely @Shutupaboutthesun I find it deeply problematic, as if both peoples are not real people at all but projections. There is real racism towards both I think. The simplicity of such sloganeering (going back to the point of the OP) just makes any reasoned engagement with the complexity of the situation impossible.