What did you do during the genocide in Gaza?

[ssd]

This is a brilliant article.

This will be taught in schools one day and our grandkids will ask us but what did you do when you knew this was happening?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/22/israel-gaza-genocide

I remember when Israel declared war on Hamas Jeremy Bowen explaining to people Hamas could not be fought as they were deeply ingrained in Gazan cities and urban warfare in terms of on the ground military would cost thousands of Israeli soldiers lives due to the vicious nature of door to door combat. There was certain smugness in the report I felt when Jeremy in his considered analysis thought this would be an impossible blood bath for Israel.

Israel decided upon an aerial campaign in areas of a purely ground offensive which I am guessing Hamas thought they would never do as their operatives lived in close proximity to civilians (quite deliberately). Hamas misjudged badly.

It is the use of aircraft at scale that surprised a lot of pundits in my opinion. The scale of the bombardment obviously leads to civilian casualties given the cowardly tactic of Hams to integrate themselves with the Gazan public but without an alternative what military tactic were the Israelis to pursue. I think Hamas have realised their defence against bombing can only be to promote the 'genocide' narrative with the hope internal pressure within Israel as well as external leads to a cessation on their terms. We should not be naive to this.

No, it is absolutely not. Zionist is not a code word for Jewish people.

Zionism is about a Jewish national state, for Jews in Palestine, in response to the abhorrent anti semitism european jews faced in Europe, supported by Christian Zionists and those who believed colonisation in the Middle East would be strategically and geopolitically important.

The way Zionism has been implemented is by ethnically cleansing the indigenous population. You can't create a homeland by driving others out.

Many Jews were against zionism, from its inception, so no, not all Jews were or are zionists.

Zionists even collaborated with the Nazis. Theodore Herzl stated that the anti semites were allies in achieving his goals.

Ben Gurion's response to the possibility of thousands of Jewish children being admitted into Britain after Kristallnacht was:

"If I knew it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of those children, but also the history of the people of Israel."

Zionists purchased land in Palestine and put in place policies such as Histadrut - Jewish labour only. Those who employed local labourers were picketed, and often violently, to drive them out.

Source: The Blood Never Dried - a people's history of the British empire by John Newsinger.

Other examples, Article 7 of the Mandate provided for a nationality law to facilitate the acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jewish immigrants, irrespective of origin. This same law denied nationality to Palestinians who were abroad when the British took over.

More sources and also worth reading - mostly by Jewish authors:

Ten Myths about Israel by Ilan Pappe.

100 years of war on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi.

Genocide Bad by Sim Kern

Memoirs of an Arab Jew by Avi Shlaim

To clarify- I was saying Zionist is not a code word for Jews as a previous poster claimed. I was replying to them but have lost the original quote.

For those who say why this cause and why now -

I would say, whilst many pro Palestinian supporters support other causes, I think there is an emphasis here as this movement has been building up for decades, and it feels like there may actually the tide may be turning and this is a problem that our country bears a lot of responsibility for, is currently providing arms, diplomatic and other support for. How can we let an ally carry out such atrocities?!

For me, I've strongly felt I couldn't do anything during the Holocaust, Sebrenica, Rwanda, Rohingya genocides, but this is one where there just may be a chance that we can put pressure on our government to stop arms sales to Israel at the very least.

as if the fact that this particular claim had been refuted meant that the murder of over 1200 people on October 7th and the hostage taking didn’t happen either. It’s bizarre.

It would be bizarre and I have not seen that on these threads.

What the beheaded, oven-burned babies story meant was that Netanyahu or his wife purposely used the story and other refuted stories to help justify a response to Oct that soon appeared to be disproportionate and based more on revenge than strategy - a response which as it happens has lead to actual dismembered and burned babies - Palestinian ones.

The rebuttal of that particular burned babies story and some other false ones that had spread very quickly after 0ct 7 does not mean that people who are against Israel’s response to it think Hamas never committed vile atrocities including rape and savage, senseless slaughter, and the taking of innocent hostages including children.

That was nineteen months and 53,000 dead Palestinians, thousands more wounded, 42000 Palestinian orphans and 2,300 wiped out entire Palestinian families ago.

53,000 dead among them murdered children, murdered journalists, doctors and aid workers, and 20 remaining hostages still in captivity ago.

Clearly far right Israeli racist supremecist extremists are acting for Israel.

NB Hamas are savage, brutal indiscriminate murderous rapists and murderers

And the present Israeli power?
The chance provided by insane Hamas on Oct 7 means Israel could justify killing everyone with any link to Hamas fighters or the Hamas government. As children may become insurgents the IDF must not worry about killing them too as collateral damage which serves a purpose. As for those women who keep having more Palestinian babies, don’t worry too much about them. As doctors help keep the Palestinians alive and are also telling the world what they see, kill them. As journalists spread hate against Israel, kill them. Raze the place to the ground so there is no going back. As God chose some people but not others, and these are just Arabs - there is no such thing as Palestinians - remember Amalek and rejoice in its destruction, rejoice that Oct 7 was a catalyst to its end. Starve out Gaza.Palestinians have a death cult anyway. Cleanse it like Smotrich urged.

Did I understand you correctly that you think rape didn’t happen on October 7th?

No, I'm removing that post.

History did not begin on Oct 7th

Israeli has been murdering innocent Palestinians for decades.

The beheaded babies allegation being debunked does not mean 1200 weren't killed.

It was repeated multiple times however and very likely used to garner support for Israels actions no matter what they were.

You might not have seen it, but I have 🤷‍♀️
My point is, what difference does that one refuted claim about the 40 babies actually make?
Even if it made the atrocities committed on October 7th seem even worse, doesn’t the reality of over 1200 people being slaughtered and over 250 taken hostage outweigh one refuted claim about 40 beheaded babies?
Those 1200+, including babies and children were killed, that’s a fact.
The only way it would have made some of sense would be if Israel had claimed there were 40 babies, but in reality it would have been 40 soldiers.
I also don’t think that people who condemn Israel’s actions would have been more understanding if the 40 babies claim had been true.

Don’t you think having over 1200 of their citizens slaughtered in a single day would have garnered Israel enough support?

Not to kill and starve more innocent civilians, no.

This is completely wrong. Zionism is simply the belief in a Jewish homeland in Israel. The vast majority of Jews are zionists. It goes back way way before the pogroms of the 19th century.

Zionism as a political movement is separate to the zionism which is at the heart of Judaism.

It is egregious misinformation to pretend zionist is not a code for Jews. Of course it is, and widely documented.

History did indeed not start on October 7th.
Israel has also faced relentless attacks from neighbouring states and terror organisations since its establishment in 1948.
It’s way too simplistic to frame Israel as the sole aggressor.

I really wish the same outrage would also have been shown towards innocent Palestinians over the decades. Shireen Abu Akhla, and many others, those who were shot in the knees for marching for the right of return peacefully, children held and killed.

So 1200 people being brutally murdered (36 of them children) wouldn’t be considered shocking, but 1200 plus 40 babies would?

Zionism as a political movement is separate to the zionism which is at the heart of Judaism.
The majority of people are referring to the political movement when they speak about Zionism and it is generally because they have an issue with the current illegal settlements. It was clear it was the political movement the poster was referring to.

You need to query Netanyahu on that one. Why did they feel the need to misinform in that way when the attack was already horrific?

Who says there can’t be an outrage for innocent people on both sides of this very complex conflict?

Brave man for taking a principled stand.It can't have been easy.

www.thejc.com/news/uk/ujs-deputy-resigns-board-genocidal-assault-gaza-s7nrg5jm

A deputy from the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) has dramatically resigned during a Board meeting over the Gaza war, labelling the organisation’s position ‘untenable and morally bankrupt’.

Speaking at the Board plenary meeting on Sunday, Daniel Grossman said: “The Israeli government has been starving Gaza for over 11 weeks.

“Figures in our community are speaking out, the British government is finally taking action and even Yair Golan and Ehud Olmert are publicly recognising the atrocities being committed.

"The Board, however, continues to meet with the figures overseeing these crimes...this is both untenable and morally bankrupt.

You must be joking. A. How on earth do you know that B. Try asking people on one of these marches, which river, which sea, explain the history of zionism. Go on, I dare you.

I remember people complaining about there not being boots in the ground to avoid civilian casualties as opposed to aerial bombing.

It’s almost as if they wanted Israel to embark on a suicide mission.

There are many awful comments on SM on posts in memory of IDF soldiers and hostages who have been killed, mocking and making disgusting comments about their deaths.

Everywhere is booby trapped including civilian homes (I wonder how many Palestinian deaths that has caused?), they can’t differentiate a combatant from a civilian in a densely populated area where terrorists use hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure as bases, terrorists pose as doctors, journalists, teachers, hostages were held in civilian homes etc.

Still the combatant to civilian death ratio is the lowest in any urban warfare to date people quoting 55,000 deaths as if they’re all civilians.

How people can logically believe more women and children have been deliberately killed than combatants is beyond me, at the very least it suggests that women and children are being used as human shields which should be an absolute outrage to any right thinking person but still very little accountability for Hamas or for them to surrender but it plays into the narrative that the IDF/Israel are monsters which is exactly why this war was orchestrated and platformed on SM.

I don’t even think it’s naivety tbh. It’s deliberate due to the ingrained hatred of Jewish people and the Jewish State.

It is unpalatable to a lot of pro Palestinians that Israel defeat Hamas despite the horrific suffering they have deliberately wrought on their own people.

According to the article linked below, an Israeli official told the CNN just a few days after October 7th:

”There have been cases of Hamas militants carrying out beheadings and other ISIS-style atrocities. However, we cannot confirm if the victims were men or women, soldiers or civilians, adults or children,”

The article is from October 12th.
Doesn’t look like they tried to use the “40 babies excuse” for that long (if at all).

amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/10/12/middleeast/israel-hamas-beheading-claims-intl

How people can logically believe more women and children have been deliberately killed than combatants is beyond me

It could be partly because 50% of Gaza’s population are children. Also there is some evidence that Israel has targeted civilians of all ages including children. If the figures are accurate more women and children have been killed than in any conflict over the last 20 years.