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Conflict in the Middle East

Why do you support Palestine?

271 replies

Wildflowers99 · 21/02/2025 17:13

After the horrific kidnapping of the Bibas family and the horrific murder of the mother and her two small children, the time has come to ask British supporters of Palestine why.

A significant number of Palestinians want Sharia law. This is not a conflict of politics to them - it’s a conflict of religion. Therefore, it’s simply a case of Islam must dominate no matter what. 4 in 10 support the attacks in October 2023, which was the mass rape, torture and murder of Israelis using the most psychopathic methods imaginable - not to mention the kidnappings.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/11/amid-the-ceasefire-wrangling-how-popular-is-hamas-in-gaza-now

While I am devastated by the killing of Gazan children in air strikes, and have always supported a ceasefire, I cannot support any advancing of the Palestinian state because I do not want to further a state with views such as those above.

So, please can I ask why you support Palestine as a state? I find it painful watching people blindly marching and demanding support for a state who are opposed to everything they stand for.

OP posts:
Polka83 · 28/02/2025 18:13

Wildflowers99 · 28/02/2025 17:31

You can’t remove land from people just because you perceive they have different values from you.

Apart from that’s really not what’s happened, is it?

No- but you have repeatedly said that there should not be another Sharia state and that no one has an inherent right to land. I was not saying it has happened- more that you appear to proposing across you different posts- that this should happen.

Apologies if got this wrong. So you would be happy for Palestinians to remain on their land- as legally defined by International law?

Polka83 · 28/02/2025 18:14

Wildflowers99 · 28/02/2025 17:33

Please be clear- are you suggesting ethnic cleansing of Gaza

No, because that’s an absolutist position. I believe if Palestinians could be trusted not to commit acts of violence against Israel, then they should be entitled to self govern. But that won’t happen in a million years, so the options are continued warfare or the Palestinians moving to another Muslim country. Which would you choose? And don’t waffle on about hoping for peace and a 2 state solution, because 50 years of negotiation involving the most talented diplomats have not managed it.

50 years of negotiations that have favoured Israel. Why not just stick with international law?

KrisAkabusi · 28/02/2025 18:21

Wildflowers99 · 28/02/2025 17:33

Please be clear- are you suggesting ethnic cleansing of Gaza

No, because that’s an absolutist position. I believe if Palestinians could be trusted not to commit acts of violence against Israel, then they should be entitled to self govern. But that won’t happen in a million years, so the options are continued warfare or the Palestinians moving to another Muslim country. Which would you choose? And don’t waffle on about hoping for peace and a 2 state solution, because 50 years of negotiation involving the most talented diplomats have not managed it.

You're again making it the Palestinian's fault though. By saying the only option is war or removing them completely, you're absolving Israel of any fault in the conflict between the two. You cannot possibly believe that Israel has no fault in the enmity between the two states.

Nads0622 · 28/02/2025 18:55

Wildflowers99 · 28/02/2025 17:33

Please be clear- are you suggesting ethnic cleansing of Gaza

No, because that’s an absolutist position. I believe if Palestinians could be trusted not to commit acts of violence against Israel, then they should be entitled to self govern. But that won’t happen in a million years, so the options are continued warfare or the Palestinians moving to another Muslim country. Which would you choose? And don’t waffle on about hoping for peace and a 2 state solution, because 50 years of negotiation involving the most talented diplomats have not managed it.

Out of interest where was your outrage when over 30 Palestinian children the youngest of whom was just 2 years old in what Israel called a ‘mistake’ were killed by Israel JUST in the West Bank in the first 9 months of 2023 before October 7th. It seems your outrage is selective to Israeli suffering. You seem fo see Palestinian lives as insignificant and seem to have no understanding of the fact that nearly a million were forcibly displaced in 1948 ( many by families they’d given refuge to) , thousands killed , raped and tortured. This is all heavily documented. Surely you can see why many Palestinians don’t trust Israel. You seem to view the Palestinians as an inconvenience for being alive where they are. It’s disgraceful to say things like they’re Muslim why can’t they go and live in another Muslim country. We wouldn’t say that about any other religion. They are genetically native to the land. They’ve lived there for thousands of years. Why should they forcibly be displaced . From what I’m seeing Israel is oppressing them. The Palestinians have a right to self determination.

Liv999 · 28/02/2025 19:25

Nads0622 · 28/02/2025 18:55

Out of interest where was your outrage when over 30 Palestinian children the youngest of whom was just 2 years old in what Israel called a ‘mistake’ were killed by Israel JUST in the West Bank in the first 9 months of 2023 before October 7th. It seems your outrage is selective to Israeli suffering. You seem fo see Palestinian lives as insignificant and seem to have no understanding of the fact that nearly a million were forcibly displaced in 1948 ( many by families they’d given refuge to) , thousands killed , raped and tortured. This is all heavily documented. Surely you can see why many Palestinians don’t trust Israel. You seem to view the Palestinians as an inconvenience for being alive where they are. It’s disgraceful to say things like they’re Muslim why can’t they go and live in another Muslim country. We wouldn’t say that about any other religion. They are genetically native to the land. They’ve lived there for thousands of years. Why should they forcibly be displaced . From what I’m seeing Israel is oppressing them. The Palestinians have a right to self determination.

100%

DelaneysOnTheWineAgain · 28/02/2025 20:10

Liv999 · 28/02/2025 19:25

100%

Wonderful post @Nads0622
so well put

purpletablet · 28/02/2025 20:17

@Nads0622 Nice to see someone lay out the truth.

Whatsinanamehey · 28/02/2025 21:16

Nads0622 · 28/02/2025 18:55

Out of interest where was your outrage when over 30 Palestinian children the youngest of whom was just 2 years old in what Israel called a ‘mistake’ were killed by Israel JUST in the West Bank in the first 9 months of 2023 before October 7th. It seems your outrage is selective to Israeli suffering. You seem fo see Palestinian lives as insignificant and seem to have no understanding of the fact that nearly a million were forcibly displaced in 1948 ( many by families they’d given refuge to) , thousands killed , raped and tortured. This is all heavily documented. Surely you can see why many Palestinians don’t trust Israel. You seem to view the Palestinians as an inconvenience for being alive where they are. It’s disgraceful to say things like they’re Muslim why can’t they go and live in another Muslim country. We wouldn’t say that about any other religion. They are genetically native to the land. They’ve lived there for thousands of years. Why should they forcibly be displaced . From what I’m seeing Israel is oppressing them. The Palestinians have a right to self determination.

Thank you! This a 100 times 👏👏

birdcake · 28/02/2025 22:59

Whatsinanamehey · 28/02/2025 21:16

Thank you! This a 100 times 👏👏

Agree also!!

I'm shocked at the selective outrage. Both are awful. But some choose to see only a few as worthy of outrage.

LoremIpsumCici · 01/03/2025 16:58

KrisAkabusi · 21/02/2025 17:45

I have. I fail to see how it counters anything I've said. From your own link

"Hamas has only the support of a fifth of the population – a steep decline from a March 2024 PCPSR poll that showed majority support for Hamas in Gaza"

Which is 1 in 5, or half the 4 in 10 the OP misstated/miscalculated as supporters of Hamas terrorism.

LoremIpsumCici · 01/03/2025 17:07

when it comes to Palestine, you’re actively supporting the creation of a state that would actually be the same but worse.

OP, with respect this is Islamaphobia. You don’t know that it would be worse or under Sharia law. You don’t even know that there is no single codified “Sharia law” written down so you are freaking out over a Talibanesque extremist possibility. The truth is that the Palestinians deserve a chance at self governance and self determination without oppression and occupation encouraging extremism. You can’t deny a people this chance solely on the basis of what you fear might happen.

EmeraldShamrock000 · 01/03/2025 18:23

I'm sympathetic, but I'm sympathetic towards Israeli victims too, same feelings towards Congo and Sudan. I am not educated on every country who is suffering a brutal existence, forgive my ignorance towards other conflict countries.

I don't support Palestine because it is a complicated situation, they have very bad people living amongst them, many consider them heros.

I have noticed that people who were supporting them, had a change of opinion when Trump said they would be resettled, 'not in my country" attitude.

Like everyone else I want world peace, naive I know.

KrisAkabusi · 01/03/2025 21:00

Trump said they would be resettled

Resettled = removed from their own country. A country that 146 other countries recognise.

purpletablet · 01/03/2025 21:08

I keep seeing people mention sharia law in Palestine. Is there any basis to this?

I've seen videos of Gaza pre October 7th and it looked like the women had a lot of freedom. They went out and had fun and it seemed like hijabs were optional. Also aren't education rates amongst Palestinian women one of the highest in the world?

Whatsinanamehey · 01/03/2025 22:01

purpletablet · 01/03/2025 21:08

I keep seeing people mention sharia law in Palestine. Is there any basis to this?

I've seen videos of Gaza pre October 7th and it looked like the women had a lot of freedom. They went out and had fun and it seemed like hijabs were optional. Also aren't education rates amongst Palestinian women one of the highest in the world?

Yeah I don't know where people get that from tbh, hijab is optional. There might be some social expectations which are a consideration of both the religious and cultural demographic of the area but nothing like for eg Afghanistan.

BaMamma · 02/03/2025 20:21

Whatsinanamehey · 01/03/2025 22:01

Yeah I don't know where people get that from tbh, hijab is optional. There might be some social expectations which are a consideration of both the religious and cultural demographic of the area but nothing like for eg Afghanistan.

Wikipedia has a long entry on it:

Islamism in the Gaza Strip - Wikipedia

As another poster, above, pointed out, "there is no single codified “Sharia law” written down" so the lack of hijab is moot.

MadderthanMorris · 11/03/2025 20:46

I support Palestine because it's their country. The mandate system after the first world war was supposed to be a mechanism to bring the various regions of the ex-Ottoman empire to coherent statehood, and it did so in Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan etc. Only in Palestine did the idea of a single overarching government reflecting the will of the people as a whole become such a big problem - because Britain had made promises to the Zionists for purely strategic political reasons, and because the west as a whole felt guilty about the Holocaust (but not guilty enough, apparently, to made a jewish homeland on their own territory). None of this was the Palestinians' fault, or a reason why they deserved to have the majority of their country turned over to a colonising separatist movement, have the traditional structures of their society changed to accomodate them at their expense, or be violently hounded from their homes to allow that movement to artificially manufacture a jewish majority.

When it comes to individual acts by individual actors within this sorry saga, I tend to reserve judgment as it's so hard to differentiate truth from hyperbole and propaganda and if we're honest, most people just believe the side they want to believe. There's no doubt that members of both Hamas and the IDF have committed the most horrendous atrocities. There's also no doubt that the IDF have killed and mutilated many, many times more than Hamas have. I'm not sure I even see the relevance of all that to the bigger picture: It's a brutal war that has been brought about by geopolitical actions and issues. The point is to get to the bottom of those actions and issues and judge them according to accepted norms of statehood and international law, according to which Israel's occupation of the West Band and Gaza is entirely illegal, and the creation of Israel in the first place at the Palestinians' expense certainly extremely dubious.

As for Islamic fundamentalism, people often seem to overlook the fact that there are millions of muslims all over the world living both in muslim majority countries and as minorities in other countries, with just as much variety as those of other religions or none. And more importantly, that the West's actions towards those muslim countries is going to have an effect upon whether they choose fundamentalism or secularism, and in what way. So the Palestinians get royally shat upon by the UN in 1947, have to leave their homes and cower in the minority of the country left for them while everyone else fights it out, after which even that minority is shrunk further, then have it covered with illegal, expansionist Israeli settlements after 1967, the settlers treating them pretty much like animals with complete impunity, live through a peace process that goes nowhere partly because Israel won't allow the right of return to the refugees it created - and such experiences have the effect of turning people towards extremism? Gosh, who knew.

Palestine, like most of the Ottoman empire, had Jewish and Christian minority communities living peacefully among the muslim majority before the advent of Zionism. It wasn't the Palestinian Arabs who chose to have their homeland chopped up according to competing visions of exclusionary theocracy, so don't blame them for the fact that that seems to be the only thing their occupiers understand.

mouthpipette · 11/03/2025 22:30

MadderthanMorris · 11/03/2025 20:46

I support Palestine because it's their country. The mandate system after the first world war was supposed to be a mechanism to bring the various regions of the ex-Ottoman empire to coherent statehood, and it did so in Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan etc. Only in Palestine did the idea of a single overarching government reflecting the will of the people as a whole become such a big problem - because Britain had made promises to the Zionists for purely strategic political reasons, and because the west as a whole felt guilty about the Holocaust (but not guilty enough, apparently, to made a jewish homeland on their own territory). None of this was the Palestinians' fault, or a reason why they deserved to have the majority of their country turned over to a colonising separatist movement, have the traditional structures of their society changed to accomodate them at their expense, or be violently hounded from their homes to allow that movement to artificially manufacture a jewish majority.

When it comes to individual acts by individual actors within this sorry saga, I tend to reserve judgment as it's so hard to differentiate truth from hyperbole and propaganda and if we're honest, most people just believe the side they want to believe. There's no doubt that members of both Hamas and the IDF have committed the most horrendous atrocities. There's also no doubt that the IDF have killed and mutilated many, many times more than Hamas have. I'm not sure I even see the relevance of all that to the bigger picture: It's a brutal war that has been brought about by geopolitical actions and issues. The point is to get to the bottom of those actions and issues and judge them according to accepted norms of statehood and international law, according to which Israel's occupation of the West Band and Gaza is entirely illegal, and the creation of Israel in the first place at the Palestinians' expense certainly extremely dubious.

As for Islamic fundamentalism, people often seem to overlook the fact that there are millions of muslims all over the world living both in muslim majority countries and as minorities in other countries, with just as much variety as those of other religions or none. And more importantly, that the West's actions towards those muslim countries is going to have an effect upon whether they choose fundamentalism or secularism, and in what way. So the Palestinians get royally shat upon by the UN in 1947, have to leave their homes and cower in the minority of the country left for them while everyone else fights it out, after which even that minority is shrunk further, then have it covered with illegal, expansionist Israeli settlements after 1967, the settlers treating them pretty much like animals with complete impunity, live through a peace process that goes nowhere partly because Israel won't allow the right of return to the refugees it created - and such experiences have the effect of turning people towards extremism? Gosh, who knew.

Palestine, like most of the Ottoman empire, had Jewish and Christian minority communities living peacefully among the muslim majority before the advent of Zionism. It wasn't the Palestinian Arabs who chose to have their homeland chopped up according to competing visions of exclusionary theocracy, so don't blame them for the fact that that seems to be the only thing their occupiers understand.

Edited

Very well put. Thank you.

50GoingOn30 · 12/03/2025 12:23

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

MadderthanMorris · 12/03/2025 20:24

Jews colonised the Land of Israel, their ancestral home?

Yes. What has the fact that it was their home thousands of years ago got to do with anything? It was the Canaanites' home before them - do their descendents hundreds of generations later therefore have a right to move in and kick the jews out?

The fact that the Zionists colonised it is simply a fact, nothing inaccurate about it. They were living somewhere else; they moved to Palestine, legally at first, but then conspired with the British administrators to change laws of land ownership to force much of the indigenous population off their land. Then when that wasn't enough they actively forced them off the land and said "sorry, fuck off, this is ours now". That's called settler colonialism.

"A land without a people for a people without a land" was the slogan at the time. In other words: the indigenous Palestinians who lived there didn't (don't) count as "people". Which makes sense as background to your attempts to paint them all as savages and baby murderers.

You do know Palestine was never a sovereign country and was only referred to as a geographical region?

Yes I do. So what? The same is true of the other regions of the Ottoman empire that were thrust into uncertain political territory when that empire disintegrated. The period was one of transition from the last vestiges of empire to a consistent international recognition of the nation state as the basic unit of political definition. By the end of the second world war, all of the other regions were independent states with their own governmental structures representing the will of their populations. Why not Palestine?

Why do you think the Jewish people returning to their ancestral land and creating their own tiny state became such a big problem when there was already so many Muslim majority states surrounding it?

I don't know - maybe because they forced the Palestinians off their land, where necessary violently, took the lion's share of it and then established an illegal occupation over even the tiny bit of land that was left?

And Israel is not a "tiny state" in Palestinians terms. It was established with 55% of the land of Palestine for a jewish population numbering about 30%, then quickly expanded upon that at the close of the 1948 war, then after 1967 to about 80% What does the fact that there are muslim majority states around it have to do with anything? The people who lived there were not sitting above it moving things around on a Monopoly board and trying to decide what's "fair". They were simply living in the place they'd always lived and trying to get on with their lives.

Why did the Palestinians not have an issue with being occupied by Egypt from 1948 - 1967 or the West Bank by Jordan at the same time?

I don't know, you'd have to ask them (if indeed that's true). It's up to them how they want to live in their own country, not me.

There's no doubt that members of both Hamas and the IDF have committed the most horrendous atrocities - that sums up your distorted moral views pretty well IMO.

Wait: Are you suggesting that the IDF have not? 😲

VisitationRights · 13/03/2025 09:47

No, I do not. Until the population is deradicalised there can be no peace. Hamass has said they will keep planning to do Oct 7 over and over again, I believe them. Hamass needs to go, UNWRA needs to go, more moderate Arab countries need to step up and guide the population to a more progressive future. Though I don’t necessarily support the current Israeli government politically (just like I don’t support the current USA government politically) I firmly believe Israel is the most successful decolonisation movement the world has ever seen and I am a Zionist.

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