Do people fully support Palestine?

[Dawk]

I read this article and the scales fell from my eyes a bit: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/11/amid-the-ceasefire-wrangling-how-popular-is-hamas-in-gaza-now

I hadn’t realised that a majority of Gazans want a conservative Islamist state and the complete destruction of Israel to create an Islamic state covering the whole country (from the river to the sea I guess). They also support violence and even the sacrifice of their own lives.

I am appalled by the destruction and loss of life in Gaza, but having read this article I can’t understand why support for Palestine isn’t more caveated. Why are people waving flags and supporting Gaza so unconditionally? When you look at the polling described in the article it seems fairly clear that many/most don’t actually want peace unless it follows the complete destruction of Israel.

For me it’s a bit like supporting Iran. I would never wave the Iranian flag around because of what the country stands for. In this case I am horrified by the scale of destruction wrought by the IDF so support Palestine completely in that respect but I’d never wave the flag or chant the slogans.

If you consider yourself ‘pro-Palestine’, what do you think of the ideology described in the article?

It was very effective when it came to things I needed.

I'm truly sad that happened to you. 💔

It doesn't explain how Hamas accumulated everything they needed to fire rockets at Israel and to plan the 7 October massacre.

There are indeed questions that need answered about how they were able to get those weapons and resources through the blockade - who knew, who facilitated it, who chose to bring in those weapons instead of things that could have helped citizens of Gaza... The people responsible should be held to account.

The blockade was real, though. It had a real, harmful impact on the people in Gaza.

Agreed. The only people that can't understand are the ones that don't want to.

Not sure why posters find preventing weapons or components to make weapons in, so difficult to understand. After all it appears the blockade didn't work anyway since their recent strutting around shows they have lots of weapons.

Shame they cannot be bothered to do more constructive things with their time than terrorism though.

Agreed.

Why did you assume anything? I wrote what I meant. I meant what I said.

Life's too short to interact with people who are purposely misunderstanding. Good luck.

You left out a fairly important part of the story so it wasn't clear.

Looking at the survey a pp posted it seems that the majority of people in the uk do feel the same, so perhaps it’s you who live in a bubble? Luckily we both have access to many different ways of connecting with people, so, it is fairly straightforward to hear others views and opinions. I think it must be quite hard to be so insular now.

I’m not sure what @Dawk meant by “fully” support Palestine. If she means they condone the carnage and hostage taking then I don’t think anyone does. If she means freedom and peace for Palestine then I think the majority do.

I’m interested to ask my own question for those that consider themselves Pro-Israeli. Does being pro-Israeli mean to you, that you support the widespread bombing and the blockading of medical supplies and food to Gaza, and agree with what Netanyahu has done? Or is it something else?

i support the Palestinians but not Hamas. The Palestinians have had their country destroyed by Israel and those from the West funding them.

I grew up with the conflict in the background, seeing it in the papers, but never took much notice until Ramallah in 2000. I was working in London at the time in a Middle East owned bank and remember lots of staff being of the view that it was a good thing and well deserved. I was sickened and was from then pro-Israel, still without really knowing much about the background or history.

In London, occasionally had instances where people would say derogatory things about Jews and repeat what I now know are the old tropes and blood libels. I would ask why they would say that. They never knew.

Oct 7th happened. Everyone in my circle was appalled but immediately online you could see support. I was shocked beyond belief at the marches and hostage pictures being ripped down, and that the government was allowing clear support for terrorism, rape and barbaric torture and murder on the streets.

Shani Louk’s dead body being paraded to humiliate her - naked, raped, broken leg, being spat at by civilians, invoked rage in me that I’d never felt before. My DDs are a similar age.

The demands to see evidence of rape as if these monsters weren’t capable of that!

I don’t believe it is the even the fault of the Palestinians themselves. Generations of brainwashing to hate and the lies of ‘stolen land’ has produced this evil. It is nothing to do with land. It is a religious war. No one has stepped in. Not the surrounding Arab states, not the West. It has been perpetuated by the hate of the Jewish people around the world. Palestinian lives are worth nothing to these people, they are just cannon fodder to use against the Jews to try to annihilate the only Jewish state.

If you have questions, start a thread.

It’s a good idea @BaMamma this one seems to have wandered far from its original question. It’s a shame really.

Lies of stolen land?! Good grief. You're missing the entire point.

I'm not really sure extensive financial, logistical and military assistance in carrying out mass killing of civilians constitutes "doing nothing".

I thought the entire point of all the 9 wars started by the surrounding Arab states since 1948, Palestinian terrorist attacks including plane hijackings, suicide bombings, stabbing sprees, car rammings, thousands of rockets being fired etc, etc, which resulted in Israel having to take the security measures it has, and of course Oct 7th, was because the Jews stole the Palestinian’s land according to the various terrorist entities in the region and their supporters?

From the river to the sea and all that?

What does the PLO stand for? Clue is in the name. What did Yasser Arafat stand for?

Do you not think that if the Arabs (as they DID identify themselves as then) had accepted the larger percentage of land offered in 1948 (they had no sovereignty over it then), created their own state as the same time Israel did and taken the numerous opportunities for a two state solution since then that this wouldn’t be still going on now and decades of death and destruction would have been avoided.

At least 3 generations of Palestinian children would have grown up in peace, not as refugees in a war zone indoctrinated to hate Israel and the Jewish people?

What point am I missing?

I actually mean the indoctrination and ideology over decades of which there is extensive evidence. Loads of videos online and UN reports going back decades.

It is disgusting abuse of innocent children to allow them to live in a society where terrorists rule by fear, commit depraved acts on their own people, and indoctrinate them to want to kill Jews and believe dying as a martyr for the ‘land’ is an honourable and celebratory thing.

While the world stood by and watched. Who has intervened on behalf of the children who didn’t vote for this?

Mohab Hassan Yousef, son of one of the Hamas founders, has spoken at length on this. In fear of his own life as he has had many death threats.

Who are any of us to disbelieve someone who grew up in and lived with firsthand experience?

He calls it child abuse as well.

Many people have firsthand experience of living and working in the region. Mosab Hassan Yousef has the right to his own conclusions from his own experiences, and other people have the right to their own conclusions from theirs.

Case in point. Just seen it. Not sure if anyone speaks Arabic to interpret but it seems like some sort of violent rhetoric with the gun and all, which she must have been rehearsed in.
https://x.com/CherylWroteIt/status/1891258742353654181

That poor little girl! Who on earth could support or excuse children growing up like this?

I have no doubt that a lot of Palestinian children are not raised like this but there seems to be a significant amount who are from videos freely available online. Even one is disgusting.

Palestine Action have broken glass doors and spray painted red paint at BBC Headquarters

@SleekBlackCat that is horrific 😞

This.
Scary for the rest of the world but much more awful for the actual, real children being brought up in this way. Gazan schools should never been allowed to preach this hate.

Not to mention the 13000 children killed in Gaza by the IDF. And the thousands who've lost limbs, and parents. It's the worst place in the world to be a child.

Indeed or the parents that had to collect pieces of their children into plastic bags because the IDF used bombs not intended for built up areas.