Colorado - Is this is why people are now staring to fear the chant 'free Palestine'

[mids2019]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/01/boulder-colorado-attackcolora

Given that israel is the only jewish country in the entire world, I'd say most jewish people would have an issue with israel ceasing to exist. If it had been a jewish state in 1939, there would have been no Holocaust as the jewish people would have had somewhere of safety.

You seem to have ignored the other chants I mentioned 'globalise the intafada ' and 'by any means necessary'.

Freedom for Palestine does not mean Israel must cease to exist. Again - you’re reaching a conclusion from my post that’s not there. Again, straw man. It doesn’t really work anymore I’m afraid.

For the other chants, freedom for Palestine is just that - freedom from Israel’s control and their own lands. But in every movement, you get extremists that use that movement as a mask for their own hatred.

Actually many formulations DO believe that Israel should cease to exist in favour of either a binational state or a single state of Palestine.

Awful things are happening to Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli state, including more illegal settlements in the West Bank

However, injuring Holocaust survivors with Molotov cocktails and makeshift flamethrowers is not the answer

There are too many antisemites who are more than happy to use the current horror in the Middle East as an excuse for violence

On the contrary, 'from the river to the sea' means exactly that - that israel should cease to exist and that Jews should not live there.

Again, you ignore the other chants 'globalise the intafada ' and 'by any means necessary '. What exactly do you think these mean?

I abhor all wars, all loss of innocent life. But this thread is specifically asking why people are fearful of the free Palestine movement. I'd wager jewish people are more fearful than most given most of the chants they shout are directed towards them (seeing as 90% of jewish people identify as zionists - ie: the right to self determination in their ancestral homeland. NB': that does not mean they cannot live side by side with their Arab, druze, Christian, copt and Muslim cousins - just as they have done for many years - Muslim Arabs I the judiciary, equal rights to education, work, pay, medicines etc)

I want nothing more than peace, but calling for violence globally against jewish people is not the answer.

You say freedom for Palestine doesn't mean Israel must cease to exist and I'm sure a large number of the protesters agree with you and are simply protesting against the devastating impact this war is having on Palestinian civilians.

BUT hamas, who are currently still the ruling group in Gaza, and from whom these chants originated, think exactly the opposite. Their focus IS to wipe out Israel, or more specifically Jews. So by repeating their chants the protesters are ignorantly repeating the phrases of hate.

This, rightly or wrongly, gives the impression that they support hamas. In some cases they do and some they don't.
Sadly this use of very specific language makes it difficult for Jews to know who they are safe around and for Hamas is most likely a huge victory in itself.

Their focus IS to wipe our Israel, or more specifically Jews. @helloblossom

That's nonsense, They haven't got a hope. There are probably no more than 30,000 of them and over 15 million of us, nearly half of whom live in the US and are therefore probably gun owners.
Stop worrying, it'll never happen.

This is completely naive. It's in the h@mas charter. I suggest you read it and believe what they say.

There’s a quote I’ve seen others use on mumsnet about relationships which is very apt here - “When someone shows you who they are, believe them”.

Hamas, and some other groups throughout the Middle East, do want all Jews to die. It is true that they haven’t got the capability to achieve it, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

If this is what you actually think is going on then you definitely don’t live on planet earth.

From where I’m standing it just looks like you’re trolling Jews.

As you will know, many many Jewish Europeans did not think that what happened to most of them in WW2 would happen.
So I am sure that you and I can be generous in allowing them to heed any calls pertaining to their total annihilation as so many of them and the rest of the world did in the 1930s up to the last frenzied fires of Treblinka as Germany's inevitable defeat neared with the advancing Russians in 1945.

Many more than 15 million people in all continents could care less if Jews ceased to exist and as many downright hate them.

Just 'cos it's written in their charter doesn't mean it's gonna happen.
Have you seen the size of the Israeli military ?

And anyway, there have been many proposals from Hamas since then guaranteeing Israeli security in return for withdrawal from Gaza.

Hold on, youre expecting israelis/Jews to believe that h@mas 'guarantee their security'? The same H@mas who were responsible for the October 7th atrocities - that they themselves FILMED whilst committing unspeakable acts against peacenik festival goers and Liberal minded kibbutzniks? Who are STILL holding 58 innocent hostages/bodies over 600 days after this attack? Who strangled to death the little bibas babies? I won't even state what they have done previously regarding bus bombings, kindergarten bombings, nightclub bombings. The same H@mas whose intended aim is to wipe out all israel and Jews worldwide? Oh yeah, I can really see why you'd be on the side of H@mas - not!

If there are any vacancies for a "Peace negotiator", I wouldn't bother.

No. It was my response to the comments before me on this thread.

Exactly.

While I don't condone the attacks, governments around the world need to sit up and listen to their populations. Most people don't support Israel's wiping out of Palestine.

@JemimaTiggywinkles

This is not the converse of the previous post. Palestinians aren’t dying because Palestine exists, they’re dying because their terrorist government refuses to surrender in a war they started and are still holding hostages.

A war they started 😳

Are you referring to 1948 when they invited the state of Israel to be splodged over 60% of their land and to ethnically cleanse the Arab Palestinians living within its artificially created borders? Or to 1967 when they invited that same state to unilaterally extend beyond even those borders, illegally occupy the rest of the land and proceeding to impose a system of dehumanising apartheid on the inhabitants for the following half century?

@MyBeloved On the contrary, 'from the river to the sea' means exactly that - that israel should cease to exist and that Jews should not live there.

I'm not taking a position on the contentious phrase, but would just point out that even saying Israel should cease to exist does not mean that jews should not live there. Jews lived in Palestine alongside Muslims and Christians for many, many centuries before 1948.

And now they don't. Because they were driven out of every country in the middle east. So what, you think once they've lost the only land they've got, they'll be welcomed back? They'll be allowed to live between the river and the sea with the peaceful Palestinians who are taught in their schools that the best thing you can aspire to, is to kill Jews?

Well it could happen I suppose. I wouldn't put money on it, mind.

Are you saying you do not believe there should be one country in the whole world that is a jewish state? I mean, all other religions do. Why is it only the Jews who seem to be denied this? It's the size of Wales! The Jews are indigenous to Israel and have been there consistently throughout history, despite being overthrown by many.

Do you really believe that Muslims, Christians etc don't already live together in Israel currently? Arab Muslims actually make up 20% of the Israeli population. All enjoying the same rights? So what is your issue exactly?

Do you genuinely have no compassion for the Jewish people who have been attacked?

Because they were driven out of every country in the middle east. @ScreamingBeans

It's far more nuanced than that. Yes, life certainly did become far more uncomfortable for them in Arab lands after WW2. But "driven out" is inaccurate. The Jews in Morocco, Iran, Iraq, were reluctant to leave but had to do so. There was a sizable Moroccon Jewish community up until the six day war in 1967, so for them it was quite a long "driving out". Jews in arab lands had very strong ties with the land in which they were living, not Israel. There are still about 6,000 Jews living in Tehran.

Maybe you are the type of person who stands rocksteady when all and any signs of you "overstaying your welcome" are thrown at you.
But your constitution is no arbiter of what constitutes being driven means.
You are a minimiser.
Also pogroms existed in Palestine and the Middle East before the existence of modern Israel.
So Jewish/Christians and Muslim Arabs living together pre or post Israel's modern existence means nothing vis a vis Jewish people having the right to call somewhere home where they do not have to keep cash and victuals under the mattress and a suitcase ready just in case the other shoe drops.
Which it did, all over the Middle East and with more intensity when Modern Israel was created.

Six thousand Jews living in Tehran means little in a world where Iran funds the potential annihilation of Israel and Jewish people. And as Iranians are not Arabs, Palestinians dying for that cause means little to Iranian leadership.

Most Black people in the US live in the South.
That does not make the US South a bastion of liberalism, much less progressivism.

The issue is that Netanyahu is justifying what he is doing in Gaza in the name of Judaism. I feel for Jewish people but my empathy and concern is currently more for Palestinians who are being bombed and starved to death.

All enjoying the same rights? I'm afraid that's not the case in Israel. Which other religion has its own state? I'm not aware of any.