UK government - sanctions against Israeli cabinet members

[mids2019]

I think this is as far as the government should ever go if it does try and send some kind of signal to Israel. The idea of sanctions hurting every Israeli , including the families of the October 7th victims, would be simply wrong. To damage the economy of Israel at this time of war would be morally wrong and simply lead to other countries improving trade links.

Our government should not be beholden to a pro Palestinian mob and make long lasting commitments that would reward Hamas for one of the most terrible if not the most terrible terrorist event in history.

Again. It surveyed 1000 People from a population of 10m. Stop already.

Actually, we are all sick of Israel government supporters responding to EVERY accusation with “me me me”. ENOUGH.

True.:(

Juju I hope you can have a good evening with your family or a good book, and forget about this shitshow for a while.

@Jujujudo

“I don’t know one Israeli that took part in this survey. Not one.”

“This survey interviewed 1000 Israelis. There are around 10m of them. That’s 0.01% of the population. But you know that, which is why it’s even more sinister that you’re using it as any viable indicator of how Israelis actually think.
But it’s so easy to believe that 47% of Jews Israelis want a genocide. Because you see us as inhuman. Rats. Insert alternative trope”

The methodology:

Method: Dedicated online survey
Population: 1,000 Jewish Israeli adults aged 18 and over
Sampling Frame: Nationally representative sample of internet users in Israel
Demographics Collected:

• Gender: Male, Female, Other
• Year of Birth: Respondents select from a list
• Region of Residence: Central, Sharon, Jerusalem and surroundings, South, North
• Religious Identity: Secular, Traditional (non-religious), Traditional (religious), National Religious, Ultra-Orthodox

Polls don’t intend to interview everyone- they are a meant to be a representative sample.

The poll was done in Hebrew by an Israeli company with expertise in polling.

https://www.geokg.com/en/phone-surveys/

Am I not speaking clearly? I don’t care who they interviewed.. taking the opinions of 0.01% of ANY population then using the results to justify the demonisation of that population is ridiculous. Please. You seem like an intelligent person, enough now.

Eh? What are you so angry about?

What are you talking about?

I mean I am open to hearing criticism of how this poll was conducted. I do find the results astounding. But generally we do use polling of random small % of a group and assume the results to be representative of the whole group. That is essentially how polling works.

I’m not sure anyone is demonising Israelis here. I think it shows that economic sanctions are needed because we need to give Israel a reason to agree a ceasefire and most importantly let life saving aid flow freely into Gaza. Internal pressure from within Israel will not be enough.

Like you mention, this is not without costs on both sides to do this. But thousands of lives are at stake.

Tell us you live in a bubble without saying it.

I cannot argue with you.

Haaretz an Israeli newspaper found that 56% of Israelis who responded to their poll answered that they were the chosen people!
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2018-09-15/ty-article/.premium/79-percent-of-right-wingers-believe-jews-are-the-chosen-people-are-you-for-real/0000017f-f000-d487-abff-f3fef8be0000

The video at the end of my post from Gideon Levy is also really interesting, a jewish Israeli who has similar thoughts to me.

The Guardian are doing a weekly series on Palestine and Israel - the tv presenter asks many people about the line between Palestine and Israel within Jerusalem and many Israelis respond that it is all Israel. A man shouts at him walking past when he is talking about Palestine to say there is no Palestine it is Israel. Also watch The Settlers on BBC!

Also I do not knowingly buy goods from the countries you have listed. Though it is hard when some things are made in China and then the final assembly happens in the EU and they put misleading labels on but I do try and avoid it! We try our best to avoid goods from any countries committing human rights atrocities, governments allow misleading labels which is a whole
other conversation.

So rarely hear the words 'release the hostages' and 'disarm hamas' alongside calls for a ceasefire.

There are some interesting regimes in the region in terms of how they exercise their power. Mahmoud Abbas is apparently in his 19th year of a 4 year term and occasionally pulled up on his government's human rights record and treatment of hamasniks under his jurisdiction- those scamps do like to defy authority - but he's the best option so far.
There is a danger that a weakened hamas will be replaced with another violent gang (as has happened in Syria - where some ethnic cleansing of minorities is going on under their new ex-daesh leader).

Obviously they don't want Israel involved. Maybe the emir of Qatar could send some troops to help keep order for the new moderate Abbas government.
'The West' has been happy enough to ignore human rights abuses in Qatar for a while so that should help international relations.

I agree but my point wasn’t that. The person who commented made out that all Israelis are supporting a genocide etc which clearly isn’t the case at all, because surveying 0.01% of Israelis is not inductive of the entire population. It’s exhausting having to constantly defend against this kind of demonisation.

How do you know how I live? Mining I’ve said here on any of these comments indicates that I live in a bubble. Is it because I support the state of Israel existing and want a peaceful region for every citizen? What bubble? That I defend the demonisation of Israelis and Jews?

I can’t comment on Ha’aratz’s poll - it’s actually an extreme left wing publication and I very much doubt that it’s read by most Israelis, although I know it’s popular among a lot of my friends. As regards being the chosen people, why they even ask that is strange! Also, so what? So there are Jews and Israelis who think they’re the chosen people. Does that justify demonising them? Being racist towards them? I know Christian’s who believe Christ is their saviour. I mean, H1tler used the “chosen people” thing as an excuse to get rid of us all.
This whole argument is strange.

Just read the link. Maybe you should too.. it states that the poll was of Israeli right wingers, 56% of whom thought they were the chosen people. Right wingers as in Ben Gvir (vomit), the Haredim (more vomit) and the coalition extremists (triple vomit). If you’re going to continue with this ridiculous point you’re trying to make to justify hating Israelis then go right ahead.

@Jujujudo

I am sorry this is distressing. That is clear.
It sounds like the poll is in no way reflective of people that you know and comes as a surprise. The findings really surprised me and it may be that people are just angry and upset, and actually would not like these things to happen. People may also say things on a telephone call that they may not say face to face.

The Pew Centre uses a panel of about 4000 people to understand views of U.S. population. A far smaller proportion of the U.S. total population.

https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/04/SR_25.04.08_us-views-of-israel_methodology.pdf

I just think that generalisations are not an accurate way of assessing opinion. That’s basically what racism is no? People/parties in power are voted in based on their personal propaganda to garner votes, not really for the benefit of the general public. I mean just because Trump is supported by a large number of Americans, doesn’t mean it’s possible to make sweeping statements about ALL Americans. I also don’t think discussing what Israelis or Jews support or think or don’t think is even relevant to anything. It is a war, conducted by rich, powerful men, controlling the narrative and actions of their citizens and military.
Discussing what Jews or Israelis believe, think, support is moot. Because it just fuels hatred and marginalisation and tries to use those opinions to justify racism or demonisation,
I am not crazy about pro-Palestinian marches. Of course I stand up for their rights of freedom of speech and to protest. But if I started making comments about polls, or opinions then I could say: 67% of protesters support Oct 7th. Or the protesters are all terror sympathisers, etc etc. That would be wrong.

@Jujujudo Views can change. Peace obviously seems impossible right now. But if we look at the history Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, even Germany and France. There are so many examples of where hearts and minds change over time and through a reconciliation process. This isn’t about demonising ordinary people.

It’s obviously not representative of the people you know. And I do hope the poll itself is flawed.

I promise you that more Israelis want to live peacefully alongside the Palestinians than don’t. Despite their fear and horror of what was done and the hostages etc. I only hope there are enough like minded Gazans, to help make this a reality.

Mahmoud Abbas is apparently in his 19th year of a 4 year term and occasionally pulled up on his government's human rights record and treatment of hamasniks under his jurisdiction- those scamps do like to defy authority - but he's the best option so far. @quantumbutterfly

No he's not.

Marwan Barghouti is by far the better option, check him out. Currently in an Israeli Jail, but offered secure borders to Israel and has popular backing from Palestinians in both WB and Gaza as he has in the past fought bravely.

The way sampling works is to be able to statistically infer things about a much bigger population - if the small sample is carefully chosen to represent that bigger population.

Insurance companies work on this premise too- eg younger people are more likely to have car accidents, older people health problems etc. These ideas seem like common sense - but are simple examples.

The statistical sampling technique itself is not racist. The way questions are worded may be difficult and not encourage neutral responses or depth in understanding.

Of course Trump is not supported by all Americans- but you could use a poll of a tiny but representative sample of who of US to infer what most Americans think of him and what segments of the population think eg by gender, age.

I think what Israelis think is absolutely paramount to what happens next- it is a democratic country and there are left wing parties they could vote for. I think this may play an important role at this juncture.

The polls of what people think are not the cause of division but make it much clearer how hard the task is to promote peace is. I do think there are systemic biases within Israeli society that makes peace more difficult- for example the ways laws apply differentially to Palestinians and Israeli Jews. Also legalising building on the WB, differential policing. I have also seen clips of the way Gazans and the war are spoken about on some Israeli TV programmes. It’s not neutral- which maybe understandable but doesn’t help.

I am focusing on Israel as they have the upper hand at present to change things.

Now this could be an example of a racist generalisation. Do you have a poll to back it up? 🙁

Israel will always need arms for is existence, history and geography can't be ignored. Another reason for the arms is obviously 'never again', the Jews didn't have a state in Europe or. a means of defence and it lead to the most horrific genocide in history.

We also never have surveys of Palestinians asking if Jews should be ethnically cleansed from their land. I am guessing if you asked the question a very high proportion of Palestinians would simply want Jews expelled from Israel yet this questions seems now to be politically incorrect to ask leading to a bias in media portrayal of views on the region.

Importantly in the world allies are important and Israel are an ally of the UK. Iran and by extension Hamas simply aren't. We may have disagreements with our friends but the fundamentals remain the same.

I think we should accept this and go forward knowing we have to support Israel and threats of economy wide sanctions or complete shut down of the arms trade will simply be a signal we don't want Israel to be defensible as a state and that would be anti Semitic as well as a historical wrong.

The US are supportive of Israel and we have always had a special relationship with the US so we should look at the bigger global picture and set ourselves in the right place geopolitoally.

Unless of course hamas surrender and release the hostages

Are you taking the piss?