Does the CITME forum negatively affect your mental health?

[SomeoneSomewheree]

Personally, yes, it does.

To see people day in and day out try and justify a genocide does affect my mental health so I try to stay away at times.

I have also noticed it is the same handful of posters on both sides arguing, neither convincing the other.

I have unfortunately witnessed at times anti-semitic and anti-Palestinian comments, which are not pleasant to read.

Does it affect you? It is not always a pleasant place whatever your stance is on the conflict.

Sorry to hear what yuh have experienced @PurpleChrayn

(the heart response was to say I empathise with your feelings not that I loved what you have experienced by the way).

Yes it is staggering all the devastation that has gone on in Yemen and Syria for years with hardly a mention on mn. When Israel is involved though there is so much discussion and fury.
If Egypt were in gaza it wouldn't even make the news.

At least the Arab world has now joined in the condemnation of Hamas ( rather belatedly but still) & reinforced the message that they need to disarm and get out of Gaza.

Note that no one accused them of diversionary tactics by focusing on what Hamas have to do rather than focussing solely on the Israel government.

Yes let's hope Starmer takes notice of the Arab nations rather than pursuing the jumping on the 'recognising the state of palestine' bandwagon that the terrorists are ecstatic about.

He'd have given isis their own state too no doubt. Just as well Israel wasn't directly involved in that.

Hamas isn’t Palestine

any more then the Israeli state is all Jews

I think there would if a there were enough people defending mass slaughter and forced starvation. The only reason there is so much discussion on this is that everybody doesn't agree that what has happened over the past 2 years is horrific and against International law. There aren't people saying it's awful that children are starving in Sudan but look at this picture of a fat mum. There aren't people with whole conspiracy theories about aid organisations and medical Drs when it comes to Sudan. There aren't people excusing the use of torture in detention centres in Sudan or questioning mass graves. There aren't people listening to perpetrators of extreme violence espousing genocidal rhetoric about the civillians in Sudan and then deciding that they don't really mean it and civillians arent being targeted. There aren't people claiming that the people of Sudan just don't love their children enough and that's why their children are being slaughtered.

It depends on ultimately how long the section stays up and whether people want a 'Palestinian Cause' section to MN. If that is the cases other conflicts in the world will deserve their own section e.g. Ukraine (though there is a long running thread). One thing I think some posters wants is an echo chamber where they can disseminate all the ill things Israel has allegedly done without rebuttal or discussion. Is this entirely reasonable in a free country with free media where open discussion is the backbone of democracy?

The UN today are discussing the condition of hostages in Gaza and this is worthy of discussion as well as the best means of releasing them yet some feel the hostages are irrelevant which is disturbing.

At the end of the day this isn't Al Jazeera

I cuddle my kids to reassure myself I'm not justifying the death of innocents and do something kind to reassure myself I haven't lost my moral compass.

I often think to myself that if I met most of these posters socially I'd probably really like them and we'd get on just fine. I dont talk about Israel / Palestine with a lot of my own friends because I'm worried it'd end up like on here.

Maybe I'll try some puppies next time 😊

Puppies always bring a smile to my face anyway 😊

I agree most posters we would probably get along with fine socially, people tend to be much politer face to face. Not all of them but most are coming from a good place, we just disagree mainly about who to blame for the horrors in Gaza.

Your moral compass is just fine. The war isn’t your fault (or mine).

I don’t do social media Twitter insta etc

I can read the news to see what’s going on in Gaza. It’s only on mumsnet that I read the average persons opinions

The comments and denials and excuses from some make me more sad than anything else. I am probably quite nieve to think that the whole world would care about the people of Gaza. I find it extremely depressing Knowing that so many really don’t and so many constantly deny the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
My anxieties around how hate spreads so easily in the world of social media makes me worry for the future ( not just on this thread but on the feminism ones too I should add)

Im exhausted by it all
I wish people could see through it, could step back and personally analyse everything they are being told. It concerns me greatly that they don’t

So do these threads affect my mental health ?
War anywhere affects how I feel about the world but CITME threads help me see how people’s minds tick. Now I see why we have so many wars, there’s just so much hate.
Not enough people seem to be capable of compassion to all others. I’ll admit this comes across on many mumsnet threads not just CITME ones. In fact I’d say I see far more hate when it comes to discussing welfare, the elderly schools etc.
To love all others above ourselves I think We haven’t evolved sufficiently and are now imo moving backwards

🙏 for the thread @SomeoneSomewheree i appreciate the chance for everyone to come together to speak of how they feel. I’ve found reading some comments from regular posters both interesting and enlightening.

I really appreciate the level headed, informative posters who resist personal attacks
I’ve learnt an awful lot from so many of them irrespective of which side of the fence they sit on

💐

Yes, sometimes, and I go through long periods of avoiding it. Currently, I dip in and out, and do not read all the threads. The distance between what I read on here and what I actually see on a day to day basis is sometimes so vast, I find I don't have the words to explain what I see coherently. Rhetoric from some that tars pro-Israel viewpoints as automatically supporting genocide, or starving and murdering babies is sickening to me, and makes peace feel further and further away. I wish I could adequately find the words to show that the spirit of the people I am surrounded by is not hateful, rage-filled, or vengeful; that the plight of the hostages and the despair and grief at their situation continues to remain a central, overwhelming feature, and I am sad that I do not feel able to show my reality. So I stay quiet, and feel guilt for it.

Sometimes, too, I struggle with feeling guilt when there are points presented, that are so divergent with my current experience, or my family/Jewish history, and I do not feel I always have the mental resilience to challenge them at that point; for example, the framing of the situation through a white vs brown lens; the mischaracterisation of zionism as a force of evil, and the lack of understanding of the religious conceptualisation of Zion and it's centrality to religious Jewish beliefs; the ignoring or disregarding of the history of pogroms in Israel pre-1948 (of which my family directly experienced, and I heard of first hand); and the ongoing silence and lack of acknowledgment of the continued attacks on Israel day-to-day, and how this too impacts narratives and opinions in Israel (ongoing ballistic missiles from Yemen, this week alone we had sirens at 1 am yesterday morning, and Friday evening just as Shabbat began).

I also despair at the dichotomy between the frequent characterisation of anti-semitism, particularly on CITME, as a weaponised form of defence of Israel's actions, contrasted with the quiet (and sometimes not so quiet), insidious growth of both reported and unreported anti-semitism that I see from my Jewish connections worldwide, and the rising fear I have for my family, friends, and the wider Jewish community in the diaspora. Regardless of how people minimise anti-semitism outside the community, from the inside, I can tell you I have had increasing numbers of serious conversations with rational, level-head Jewish friends and acquaintances in England, who no longer see a long-term future in England, and are now seriously looking at making Aliya to Israel. It's not a 'mass exodus' by a long distance, but it speaks to the growing uneasiness.

Your post saddens me profoundly. I see what you see too.

Sorry for how you are feeling @EllaDisenchanted it sounds very difficult.

You don’t need to feel any guilt whatsoever for staying quiet when you choose to though. None of us should feel any obligation to post more than we’re comfortable with. It can be hard mentally reading some of the comments & must be that much harder for those with any personal involvement.

There are, whether people accept it or not, horrific things going on all around the world and they pass by with barely a whisper.

It depresses me to see a forum section dedicated to what looks like singling out one country, one people, one conflict, one crisis and that it's so mired in not only obvious bias, but constant disinformation, truth twisting and Olympic level virtue signalling which doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

I think British society has become quite broken, egged on by the power of social media and I'm sorry that I'm seeing people behaving as they are. I'm unsurprised that Jewish people don't see a future in Britain - in their shoes I'd be leaving and to be honest I'm thinking of leaving too just because I don't want to share a country with people doing and saying the things they are.

That doesn't affect my mental health, but it does make me sad. Some of the threads here aren't discussions of global issues, they are basically just demonisation. What they're trying to spread is the idea that Israel is evil, inherently and irrevocably and more so than any group or country and Palestine is inherently the opposite.

I see through a crystal clear eye why they are trying to do that, and it causes me to see a deep, sickened society in front of me that might have crossed a rubicon.

I only dip into it occasionally and usually regret it when I do as it's so brimming with hate and misinformation. There's a massive propaganda machine churning out lies, I'lll give it to Hamas, they are good at that.

They are aren't they. I must admit give them their due hamas have won the pr war so far. Who knew seasoned journalists would lap up all the staged photos and stories without question.

Israel have tried and failed as expected. You can't put a positive spin on a genocide no matter how hard they try. They might have been more successful if they weren't killing innocent civilians on a daily basis.

I was watching some of the Oxford union and Cambridge union debates online and surprised that a student tried to claim that Britain didn't bomb German civilians in WWII to support the argument she was trying to make (an Oxford university student).
Ideological capture is not hard if you get them young.

Yet hamas have put a positive spin on starving their own people it's all the IDF's fault! Despite there being footage of hamas gorging on the food in the tunnels.

Well said

I don't visit CITME often. Too many black and white thinkers with Palestine good and Israel bad frequent these threads. Just look at the number of threads with deleted hate filled posts. Not worth it really, you'll never change the mind of the ones who cannot think about history and chances and why things develop a certain way and how radical beliefs to wipe people out should bever be tolerated - no matter who has them. It's a special cause to some, it perhaps makes them feel important or like they are 'doing something' by posting the same old stuff and hatred over and over again. So a quick dip in from time to time and I see nothing really changes so off again.

It seems like quite a few people dip in and out and also are dismayed at the hate and misinformation. Hamas has won the PR war and quite happily used their children to win it since to them there is a bigger prize. Some people just want to live in peace whilst others (radicals like Hamas) want the destruction of other people who don't follow their thinking.

I don’t read it that much and often find what @GentleSheeprefers to.

Hamas have such willing disseminators of their propaganda. And now western leaders putting conditions, but for some, not on terrorists.

People keep talking of Hamas "winning".

Nobody is winning here. Gaza is decimated, Palestinians are starving, Isreal is becoming a Paruah state and Jewish people feel unsafe because of a rise in antisemitism.

I don't see any wins.