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.

That’s hardly fair.

You must not have read that many of @dairydebris posts because they have criticised certain actions of the Israeli government in the past.

It is my observation that those on the pro Israel side are way more willing to be balanced & criticise the Israeli government as well as Hamas than those on the other side. We can see fault on both sides but have decided that overall, we support Israel.

The personal attack was uncalled for.

🙄 when people I don't know speak to me like that I don't mind- because you don't know me. It's not personal.
It does show me you can't answer my questions tho.

Personal attack to say someone is giving Israel a free pass when they say I blame the party that started it?

Careful you don't hurt yourself with that reach.

Many of their posts do indicate they give Israel a free pass.

Speak to you like what? You asked who was giving Israel a free pass. I answered. That's directly answering your question.

Debating this issue doesn’t always have to be acrimonious you know. It is possible to do so without resorting to criticising people just for having a difference of opinion.

A “free pass” implies completely accepting everything Israel does without criticism. Which doesn’t apply to this person.

I wasn't being acrimonious. I just wasn't fluffing up posts unnecessarily.

I'll make up my own mind as to what I think of people's posts, I don't need to be told what to think repeatedly. Thanks for trying to help me though. Is that fluffy enough for you to not me of personally attacking someone?

Care to answer any of my other ones then? Or just the 1/ 6 that you could twist into a snappy put down?

Theyre below again in case you need reminding-

Would Israel have done any of the above had Hamas not commited the atrocity of 7 October? Would they have got this free pass you talk of if Hamas hadn't done that?

And in what sense does Israel have a free pass? What does that mean? Theres been huge international condemnation. Arrest warrants for war crimes. Increased antisemitism in lots of places. Do you mean a free pass in that no one has actually used military force to try to stop them? Is that what you think the world should do?

This was to @GladioliGreen

The fact that there is a need for a UK-based website to have a very active CITME forum, but no need to have similar forums dedicated to atrocities in Sudan, Russia or many other places in something I think needs to be reflected on.

Why does this conflict in particular bring out such emotion, divisiveness, vitriol and entrenchment, in people who have no tangible link with the region and people affected? And why don’t other conflicts achieve this?

It is because it is Israel, simple as that. No one will admit it but it is so very obvious.

We didn't have thread after thread about Putin or the Saudis and Yemen.

If terrorists had abducted so many UK people I'd expect our government to do everything possible to destroy the terrorist organisation and get the hostages back but for some reason people seem to lap up the Hamas tales of persecution while they feast on aid in their tunnels.

@Gloriia I 100% agree. I find it depressing that so many otherwise intelligent people, who I know would never think of themselves as anti Semitic, can’t make the mental leap to question why their attention and emotions are focused solely on Israel and Palestine.

All Christian countries have tangible links with the region

'Would Israel have done any of the above had Hamas not commited the atrocity of 7 October? '

Exactly. No they wouldn't. Israel pulled out of gaza in 2005 and handed it over and look what a shit show hamas made of it. Spent a fortune on an underground network and that's about it.

Hamas don't want a 2 state solution they want it all from 'the river to the sea'. So tedious that some folk cannot see that hamas need fo be obliterated before gazans can have any kind of peace.

Do you think Netenyahu and his party have ever wanted a 2 state solution either? His party have the 'river to the sea' down baked into our constitution. He literally funded Hamas to reduce the likelihood of peace.

So wait, you have a lot of (understandable) concern for the small number of hostages, but when it comes to 2 million starving people your response is that more people are starving in other conflicts, so we should focus on them more.

So are the numbers important or not?

If we should focus on the greatest number of starving people, why are people so concerned with 25 hostages?

Isn't there enough compassion for everyone?

Yes there is compassion for everyone . The point is the massive amount of fury and attention this conflict generates when yemen etc hardly get a mention. It's as if people hate Israel for some reason.

It must be so frustrating, not to mention tiring.

Yes it does, but for different reasons feom you OP. Israel is clearly not seeking to commit a genocide, and the emphasis on this claim and the complete ignoring of the very real genocidal intent of the government of Gaza to Israelis, does cause me real distress due to the callous disregard of Israeli humans simply because they are Israeli Jews.

Why do you care about the hostages then, given they're are only 25 surviving ones, rather than focusing on Yemen...

It seems quite reasonable to blame a war on the people that started the war. I think most people blame Nazis for WW2 and Putin for the Ukraine war.

And in this case, Hamas are not just the party who started the war, but the party who have continued it. They have continued it through continual rocket attacks and in-person terrorist attacks on Israel since Oct 7th, through publicly stating their intent to commit many more October 7th attacks, and, vitally, through retaining hostages. I can think of only one reason why people have cut the continuing actions of Hamas out of the narrative, and that is blatant bias against Israel.

Israel has been forced to adapt its tactics to the actions taken by Hamas. But there is absolute silence on that in the narrative, resulting in a very distorted understanding of what is happening.

Hamas have been quite clear on the benefit to them of their citizens suffering. There’s silence on that too.

A one sided focus on the actions of one side in a war but total silence on the actions of the other will inevitably lead to a distorted view.

You know nothing about my work, what I’ve campaigned for in the past or what I’m campaigning for currently, and I owe you no explanation for why I’m focusing on this urgent, visible crisis.

And yet every time Hamas has agreed to a deal that would release the hostages, Israel has either rejected it, added new demands, or broken the ceasefire themselves. That’s not “rehashing points,” that’s highlighting a repeated pattern that undermines the idea that this is really about the hostages.

Of course Hamas should act in civilians’ best interests- but Israel holds overwhelming military power and with that has repeatedly chosen to bomb, starve, and displace civilians instead of taking opportunities to end the war. Both can and should be condemned.

Did the fact that Gaza has one of the highest child death rates in modern conflict history just go right over your head? That’s not a side detail- it’s why people are speaking out so urgently.

And why does what’s happening in Yemen mean Israel shouldn’t be held accountable for dropping the equivalent of several Hiroshima-sized bombs in Palestinian civilians?

Yemen’s crisis is horrific, yes, but the lack of coverage is due to less public awareness and far less direct involvement from our own government in real time. In Gaza, we are seeing a trapped civilian population bombed daily, starved, and denied aid while our own taxes bankroll it and our leaders block ceasefires.

And no- the child death toll isn’t some mystery. It’s based on consistent, independently verified casualty tracking from UN agencies and respected NGOs. Trying to cast doubt on it doesn’t make it go away.

Of course you owe me nothing. But in the absence of any explanation from you and others on here as to why youre so hyper focused on Israel's faults in this current conflict, and not Hamas' faults, and not others who are committing similar faults all over the globe, we are forced to draw our own conclusions.