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?

Sadly , I think many of the victims of October 7th were precisely the kinds of Israelis who would be most likely to criticise Netanyahu and feel sympathy for Palestinians. Hamas didn’t care and raped and murdered them anyway..

And Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians - neither side are behaving better than each other.

There is no equivalence. I'm so tired of this BS. Hamas murdered all those people on 07 October and directly bought the death of every single Palestinian killed in the war they started that day. If they hadn't done what they did that day 1000's of Isrealis and Palestinians both would all be alive today, with their families. And for what? Gaza destroyed and immeasurable sorrow. Hamas deserve to rot in hell forever.

I agree - Hamas must be wiped out but it’s not BS - Israel has killed far more Palestinians - not just since 7 October. They are responsible as well.

@OpheliaWasntMad makes good points about the people Hamas attacked. Exactly the people who were supporting peace and a fair deal for the Palestinian people.

Your answer is heartless.

“I don’t care if your people died because the territory group in charge should have looked after them better.”

Unfortunately there are millions of ordinary people in the world who would have loved or would love an iron dome to protect them.

I don’t really grasp people like you who don’t want Palestinians to have their own state but do now, want us to acknowledge that Hamas is an official government with a legitimate army!

They’ve been offered a state several times, they don’t want it, they want Israel gone.

Who says they don't? How many Palestinians have you spoken to?

Because, obviously, they would have made a deal before now.

Yes if only it was as simple as that.

Attempts at peace and a Palestinian state have been derailed by extremist from both sides ( including, notably, Netanyahu).

I don’t agree with this. Hamas did not cause the IDF to act in the way they did. The Israeli government was directly responsible for the direct deaths of nearly 50,000 people, not counting the indirect deaths, suffering and maiming of Palestinians including children. The IDF is accountable for displacement of nearly 2 million people. Whether Hamas could have predicted this kind of response is a different matter but don’t say the Israelis didn’t have a choice. They had agency in how they acted. At least pro-Israelis should own it.

Israel may have thought they had no choice, but some of us see their actions as a collective punishment on Palestinians. That’s the purpose of this thread isn’t it? To square the circle and dehumanise the Palestinians so that they are not seen as deserving.

What does it actually mean- do people fully support Palestinians? Do you mean- do people think that the Palestinians actually deserved what the Israelis have done to them?

Well yes, Gaza would perhaps love an iron dome, seeing as Israel has bombed them every couple of years or so. I don't know much about how it works, but I think it might only be effective against inferior weapons such as rockets. I'm not sure it would protect against the 2000lb bombs Israel drops or their drone strikes.

"cutting women’s breasts off and playing with them while gang raping her. tying children and their parents together with wire and burning them alive, torturing a family by cutting off their body parts while they are sitting round a dining table. kidnapping babies, etc, as evil?"

Are these real events that took place or made-up stories such as 40 beheaded babies burned in ovens? Either way, I feel deep sadness for loss of life on both sides. I don't see the actions of IDF as any better if these claims were true. We have seen enough videos of IDF soldiers who don't care about civilians in Gaza and we have seen enough people cheering up on their killing. We have read about IDF's own reports claiming they were instructed to make maximum destruction. So, yes I consider IDF as equally evil as Hamas.

"You don’t think Israel’s stance may be borne out of years of wars started against them, terrorist attacks hijacking planes, blowing up buses, pizza parlours, shopping malls, murdering their whole Olympic team, murdering whole families including babies in their beds, shooting up school buses, disembowelling people and pulling out their innards for making a wrong turn etc, etc?"

I have lived with terrorism enough to know it doesn't happen out of the blue. Terrorism is the reason I moved out of my own country, not because it was an immediate risk to my life but because I didn't want to participate in it by being okay with my husband joining the army for compulsory military service. My personal position couldn't change anything but at least I had the choice not to participate in it. I'm also familiar how majority of public was manipulated with disgust caused by the terror group and how this disgust was used to justify and dismiss the loss of civilian lives on the 'other side' because they were 'supposedly' supporting these terrorists.

"Now you’re saying the 1948 war wasn’t really to wipe out Israel."

It's not my opinion. Its the opinion of subject matter experts based on historical facts and referenced material.

"Sounds like you’re pretty one sided to me."

More like you are projecting your one-sidedness onto me.

"It’s well known that if Israel wasn’t there, the Arabs would be fighting each other. Israel is just a distraction. Sunni vs Shia."

Sure. That's what I've said before. So presenting Israel as this tiny little country where Arabs are collectively trying to destroy is not true as Arabs or all these surrounding majority Muslim countries are not unified. But we'll see if Netenyahu-Trump alliance will unify them.

@ochalove you don't see any difference between acts of war where soldiers aren't particularly careful of enemy civilians or destroy more buildings than needed compared to the acts of individual, maximally cruel, person-to-person torture which @sleekblackcat describes?

Really? No difference?

I'd suggest that isn't a normal reaction. Most people are particularly disgusted at deliberate, horrific individual torture and cruelty. It elicits a visceral reaction. How a life is ended matters, not only the loss itself.

Your past may have affected you more than you realise.

Its horrifying to see people still saying that IDF are equal to Hamas. 'Equally evil'. Truly horrifying. People pay lip service again and again to saying Hamas are evil terrorists and oh no they don't support them. But then you read posts like this. I suppose you at least have come out and said it openly.

I think the poster is saying that they don't support either Hamas or the IDF, as both organisations have committed awful acts.

But they specifically said IDF are 'equally evil' to Hamas. Thats unconscionable. All armies commit terrible acts. War is terrible, it causes people to act in terrible ways. But Hamas is on a different level. Surely we can all agree on that?

I think some of that may depend upon an individual's experience of the relevant parties.

I meant objectively?

I’m not sure most people would judge this situation in the same way @statsfun . It simply isn’t a universal truth that hands on horror is “worse” than sanitised horror. You aren’t a better person in someone’s eyes if you starve and maim thousands using expensive weapons and wearing a laundered uniform than if you slink from the darkness and run amok. One tortured murdered person is not more than thousands. Human life does not work like that. We cannot balance and judge one more or less bad than the other. What we can do is stand firm and condemn all wrong doers. We can refuse to go along with the herd and say “stop” when we see wrong being done. We can speak for those that are silenced, demand food and shelter for those that are without, and work towards safety, equality and understanding for all.

I think what people often overlook is that “supporting Palestine” is not anti Israeli.

Palestinians everywhere were quite happy to support Hammas when they thought they had been victorious invading Israel and murdering Israeli civilians
But aren’t happy with the consequences

If you think the murder of civilians is something to celebrate then you can’t be surprised when the retaliation targets the civilisation population

I can't agree with this.

I find it viscerally more evil to commit the acts of 7 October, against innocent civilians at a party, than to kill innocent civilians with misplaced bombs. I know this sounds cold and calculated. But I'd rather die in a bomb blast than raped and tortured to death.