Many pro-Palestinians DO actually support Hamas

[ConscientiousObserver]

There I said it.

Obviously they won’t come out and admit it, for fear of exposing themselves as supporters of evil, and also because they worry that they may be traced as it is supposedly illegal to support Hamas, as a proscribed terrorist group.

The evidence is all there -

The blind belief in the blatant Hamas propaganda which defies sense and logic.

The demonising descriptive language used to describe Israel.

The insistence that a war Israel didn’t start justifies Israeli and Jewish people around the work being persecuted, attacked and even murdered.

The protests against Israel but not Hamas who actually started the war.

The complete lack of interest or outrage in the Israeli hostages who actually included children and and a baby.

The calls for immediate ceasefire since the war started with no calls for Hamas to surrender.

The complete lack of accountability for Hamas and Palestinians in general.

I cannot fathom that anyone with a sane mind would support evil, barbaric murderers and rapists who also actively want to get their own civilians killed, and kill them themselves, so can we assume that for these people, their hatred of Israel and the Jewish people is greater than their care for human life as a whole.

A genuine question.

I agree, but I think MN is a difficult place to express this without being labelled a child murderer.

Agree, it’s crazy.

It's possible. I'm hearing some troubling things irl.

What worries me more is that a lot of people marching for "peace" have been brainwashed into a somewhat one-sided view of what peace looks like, and who for. The first "pro-P" demo in London (14 Oct) was applied for on 7 October as the attacks were unfolding, suggesting a deliberate effort to control the narrative and present the atrocities as a kind of freedom protest. DARVO indeed.

Agree.

And as for ‘queers for Palestine’ - the mind boggles.

I agree.

Hamas have been completely written out the narrative by these people. As if Israel has not been reacting and responding to Hamas's actions ever since Hamas started this war on October 7th. They had to write Hamas out of the narrative to be able to present Israel as the bad guy.

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This isn't a football match where you pick side and blindly support them.

It is perfectly possible to be appalled by the actions of both Hamas and the Israeli government

I think you're right op. I also think a proportion of them are just useful idiots who have seen footage from Gaza and think it's sad and can't see beyond that at all. They have been brainwashed by a far more sinister cause.

But this is not what is happening.

The narrative is not at all on how Hamas is continuing to behave and how they are currently causing the suffering of Gazans for their own purposes. Instead all the blame is going on Israel, with no context as to how Israel are constrained by or responding to the action of Hamas, or how Hamas could reduce the inevitable suffering that is caused to civilians in war, but is instead deliberately ensuring Gazan civilian suffering. And how Hamas promises to commit more October 7th atrocities in the future.

Instead their is a complete silence on how Hamas is an active agent in the devastation in Gaza. But much noise about Israel.

And I think people do like a simple goodie v baddie cause...it is like a football match. They don't want nuance or complicated issues to consider. They want to pick a side...and who should they pick? How should they decide? Well who looks sadder on social media posts?

What is this more sinister cause? I have Jewish friends who also go on the marches. There's massive support from Ireland for the Palestinians because the Irish were driven off their land and experienced famine. This situation goes way beyond Hamas and goes back a long way. The British have dirty hands in this situation, starting with the Balfour declaration. You don't have to support Hamas to want a ceasefire and a peaceful settlement.

Why was my previous post deleted which said -

If someone is only outraged at Israel, it’s clear what they are supporting.
**
Which is not Palestinians who want to live in peace.

Perhaps MN can explain why that broke Talk Guidelines?

Yes, many do.

Of all of the threads I’ve been on- people have openly condemned Hamas, including myself.

OP your post doesn't seem to make sense. You say there are all these people supposedly supporting Hamas, but then you say they won't admit it because they're afraid of exposing themselves as supporters of evil - why would people be supporting something they considered evil? Unless you're saying they are secretly evil as well and that's why they secretly support them? Who are all these evil people? I just don't understand how you're reaching your conclusions. It's like you've gone down a rabbit hole.

Or maybe you just think everyone who doesn't agree with you 100% must be an evil Hamas supporter?

No one thinks the Israeli hostage situation was anything other than horrific. Unfortunately it was never a priority for Netanyahu to get the hostages back, he was the one who didn't care or prioritise them and I think that was a terrible, terrible thing for those poor people. It's also terrible that Jewish people around the world are being targeted, that is a terrible thing too.

What's also terrible is that children are starving and being shot in Gaza and people calling them 'the sadder faces on SM' is really cold and heartless. So many people seem to have lost all compassion, even to the point where they have become completely racist - on another thread a poster was saying Arabs shouldn't be allowed to lead their own countries. There is so much hatred and 'if you're not 100% with us then you must be 100% against us'.

I just think the whole situation is very, very sad.

Quite simply, they don’t consider an organisation who freely admits it wants to and is trying to annihilate Israel and slaughter Jews, as evil. This is what they are trying to hide.

Support for Hamas is directly fuelling this war to continue.

Most rational, sane, people would be horrified by that but not these people because their hate for Jewish people is deeper than their care for human life.

It is extremely sinister and troubling.

I think it’s important to challenge the idea that being pro-Palestinian or critical of the Israeli government automatically equates to support for Hamas. That’s simply not true. I say that as someone who is appalled by the actions of both Hamas and the current Israeli leadership.

Many people are marching and speaking out because they’re horrified by the scale of destruction, civilian deaths, and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. That is not the same thing as condoning Hamas or justifying the October 7th attacks. The vast majority of people I know who express solidarity with Palestinians also condemn violence, whether it's Hamas rockets or Israeli bombardment.

It’s also worth pointing out that this conflation is often weaponised and used to shut down dissent or smear those who are calling for a ceasefire or questioning disproportionate responses. Some people might support Hamas, yes, but many more are simply calling for accountability, justice, and human rights. That should be allowed without being accused of harbouring secret allegiances to terrorism.

We have to be able to hold multiple truths at once. Grief for Israeli victims and horror at antisemitic attacks can and should coexist with empathy for Palestinian civilians and criticism of Israel’s policies. None of this is simple and painting people who care about Gaza as “useful idiots” or worse does nothing to move the conversation forward

OP didn't say that all people who are pro-Palestinian or critical of the Israeli government support Hamas.

The suggestion is that "many" of them do & the arguments used do suggest that at least some do.

Personally, I think it's true that some of the above people do secretly support Hamas, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that "many" do.

There’s a big difference between supporting the rights of a civilian population under siege and endorsing the group in power. We don’t assume people who criticised the US invasion of Iraq were “secretly” pro-Saddam.

Wasn’t most of the criticism of the Iraq war regarding the lack of credible evidence for the justification of the war?

How can you even compare that to this war?

Was there persecution, attacks and murder of either US or Iraqi civilians and were they justified and seen as an inevitable consequence of the war?

Was Iraqi propaganda reported as facts in the Western mainstream media?

Was Iraq offered land as an incentive not to surrender?

I used the Iraq war as an analogy for how entire populations can suffer under policies or invasions supposedly aimed at specific targets. Not because the two conflicts are identical in every way, but because they raise questions about proportionality, justification, and the human cost of military action.

To your questions:

• Yes, the Iraq war was widely criticised after the fact, once the devastation was clear and the WMD narrative fell apart. At the time, large parts of the media and political class did echo official lines uncritically, just as we’re seeing now in some coverage of Gaza.
• Yes, there were civilian deaths on both sides, and many justified them as “collateral damage” in the name of rooting out terror… sound familiar?
• Iraqi civilians were absolutely persecuted, tortured, and killed, including in incidents like Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, and others. These were “inevitable consequences” of an occupation too.
• And no, Iraqis weren’t “offered land” because it wasn’t about shrinking their country block by block over decades under occupation while being denied basic rights.

No conflict is a perfect comparison, but history is full of examples where powerful states claimed moral or security reasons while civilians paid the highest price.

I don’t believe this is true. People want to see the end of the death and suffering because they don’t want that for anyone.
Most pro Palestinians are not anti Jewish or anti Israeli. They just want this awful treatment and killing of Palestinians to end.
They wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

So naive.

I watched it this morning. He confirmed what the non brainwashed already suspected. It's well worth a watch.