Why do you support Palestine?

[Wildflowers99]

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.

Palestinians have been horribly mistreated and suppressed by Israel for decades. I don’t agree it’s about religion. It’s about Palestine fighting for its right to exist. It’s very clear looking at Israel’s actions over the last few decades that this was always their end game, October 7 was just the justification they needed.

Whatever you think of Palestine, I think you should be careful what you wish for. Between this, and Russia/Ukraine, prepare to see land grabs escalate.

Same, including very very dear friends of mine

This is so derivative and just shows you really don't understand what your support shows

Sorry, I don't get your point.

I can't stand Trump and I am utterly appalled by the fact that the American people have elected him, but I don't think anyone has suggested that we should somehow march in and remove the right of US citizens to self determination because they can't be trusted to use it properly.

Are you actually suggesting that America should not be an independent country any more because they have made such dreadful political decisions? Thought not.

You might think you're being clever in drawing such analogies, but in many ways, you're kind of proving my point.

Anyway, given that you don't support a Palestinian state, please tell us what you propose as an alternative solution.

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

I don’t condone violence on any side but if unless you’ve lived under oppression before you wouldn’t understand.

I sympathise with the palestinian people who just want to live a normal life and i sympathise with the israeli victims of terrorism. I do not sympathise with hamas terrorists or people that bomb others.

Well you said you support the right of Palestine to self-determination regardless of the fact that would mean a country under Sharia law (capital punishment, women as second class citizens etc). Yet you don’t seem to extend the same active support for the USA in exercising the same right by voting in Trump? I haven’t back searched you but I think I recall you being very vocally anti-Trump.

I agree. The irony is if that poster had to choose to be ‘minded’ by Israeli or Gazan authorities for a few weeks, I think I know which they would choose.

I lost sympathy with the Palestinian people who cheered at the body of a raped young woman being paraded through the streets, and partied around the handover of the bodies of murdered preschoolers.
I lost sympathy with the crowds filmed celebrating, looking well dressed, while the narrative is that thousands have been killed and the rest are starving. All I can assume is that it’s a two tier society where one half of the population is being sacrificed to protect the other.
I am not encouraged to sympathy by the marchers here- they are aggressive and hostile and bear no resemblance to any peace march I’ve ever seen.

OP you seem to be swerving the main question you're getting on here.

What is your solution? The displacement of the Palestinian people or the destruction of them?

If someone was to come on here and say that they didn't support Israel's right to self determination or the right for Isreal to be a country of its own this thread would have been pulled immediately (and rightly so!)

@Wildflowers99 Should we bomb into non-existence all Muslim countries then or just the ones that are inconveniently placed? This is clearly genocide. It’s astonishing to me that you can’t see this.

I don’t understand why people think they have the right to decide which religions are acceptable and which aren’t (not being at all religious myself, I support freedom of religion).

Actually, Hamas’s attack did come out of a vacuum. They have been fully in control of Gaza since 2007. They could have stuck to governing Gaza, but chose instead to invade a neighbouring country to rape, torture and murder their citizens, simply because they hate them, because they are Jews.
In 2005, all Jews were forced to leave Gaza, some literally at gunpoint. Jewish bodies were exhumed, so the land would be Judenrein for the Arabs.
This was done by Israel for the Arabs of Gaza, but this was not enough for the Gazans. They want Israel, as well.

I’ve lost so much respect for people who have blindly got on the bandwagon and joined protests etc. shows a real lack of critical thinking

I abhor Trump, and despise those who voted for him, but that's the downside of democracy, and we have to accept it because the alternatives are even worse.

And yes, I have certainly been vocal with regards to my opinions on the Trump administration, not least because I am concerned that he does not respect democracy, as we saw when he lost the previous election. We are all free to express our opinions. However, I have not ever suggested that the American people should be denied the right to vote or that their should forfeit their right to self determination because I don't like their choices.

I feel exactly the same way about the Palestinians. I might not like the choices that they would make if they had the opportunity to make them, but I still defend their right to exercise those choices

So your point isn't really the great "gotcha" that you seem to think it is.

How about you? Do you believe that people in other countries should have the right to elect leaders that you don't approve of?

I’ve lost so much respect for people who have blindly got on the bandwagon and joined protests etc. shows a real lack of critical thinking

@HardcoreLadyType This kind of misinformation is so dangerous. There is lots of evidence disproving what you’ve just said. Israel has continued to hold unjustifiable control over Gaza.

And we're back to conflating Authorities with people again. Your own link shows that Hamas has, at most, the support of 20% of the Palestinian people, but you continue to imply that they are one and the same thing.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned Hamas at all?

Do you belive the gazan people are oppressed by hamas?
The crux of the matter is that. Those on the marches never call for an end to hamas.
Free gaza from hamas. That should be the cry. Not 'from the river to the sea' which we all know is a dog whistle for ethnic cleansing of the israeli state.

Of course they have the right. But I don’t have to approve of it, or support the expansion of their state to further their ideology.

Another Islamic country operating under Sharia law is something I could never support. We’ve left Afghanistan to ‘self determination’ and look what has happened there.

It’s one thing believing in the right of countries to self determine, it’s another to march the streets holding a placard which essentially advocates the creation of a state which will carry out human rights abuses if given the opportunity.

You've posted a link about Hamas as the main source for your discussion. You've referred to "Gazan Authorities", but you're right, you haven't mentioned Hamas 🙄

To add... you seem to be conflating two things here.

One is the freedom that we all have to criticise the choices that others may make. As far as I'm concerned, we all have the right to express our views and to say when we find certain choices morally objectionable.

The other is a belief that we have a right to take away the freedom of other people to make choices at all, because we think that we might not like the choices that they may make.

These two things are not the same. Me criticising Trump or those who voted for Trump would be akin to you criticising a Palestinian leader that you considered to be abhorrent, or criticising the Palestinians who had voted for that leader. That is categorically not the same as suggesting that the Palestinians shouldn't be allowed to choose their own leader in the first place because you think they would pick one that you wouldn't like.

Not in the context of Palestinians being Hamas, no. I was careful to separate them in my OP.

I don’t think they’re the same.

But you’re criticising Trump presumably because, among other things, you find his support for human rights abuses and a borderline theocracy to be deplorable.

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