Part 2: Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[AndHarry]

Starting a new thread as the original is almost full.

The original thread is here. It was started on 1st July after three Israeli boys were found murdered, before the murder of the Palestinian boy and the resumption of sustained rocket attacks and Operation Protective edge.

There are lots of excellent posts and links in the original thread showcasing a variety of views. The main consensus was that there is fault on both sides. We also considered various options for people on both sides of the conflict to work towards a lasting peace.

Fakebook, you're correct regarding the apologists calm, matter of fact manner - It's like listening to an automated generic answer machine

Yep, inhumane and robotic.

Yes I've noticed that too ReigningQueen. Maybe it's because deep down in that stone cold heart of theirs they might have an ounce of a conscience that agrees what is happening is wrong, but their arrogance won't let them fully believe it.

On mumsnet in 2009 you could not speak against Israel or support the Gazans without being accused massively of anti semitism and many people believed the Israeli rhetoric about human shields and self defence. Its amazing what has changed over the years -can't believe i'm saying it but thank goodness for social media . The truth about this conflict speaks for itself. I avoided this thread for a while because my heart is too broken to engage in debate about who is right and who is wrong whilst my people are being slaughtered openly and freely but thank you to all of you who are helping to expose the lies and defend the innocent even if with just words and spreading awareness

Yes thank goodness for social media. I read on facebook advice to ordinary Palestinians to switch off their co-ordinate markers on their cell phones as the IDF is apparently using its so called pinpoint operation to "target" anyone who is sending social media images of what is really happening out. And I don't think target means asks nicely to stop sending images. I also believe we will see far less gruesome images in future as the IDF focuses on the one base they didn't cover - cell phones. I'm afraid I believe gruesome things will however be ongoing.

I believe the point of this operation protective edge is not so much to find terrorists (although obviously I'm sure the IDF is happy when they find arms/explosives) but to terrorise the ordinary population so that they shut up and put up with the crappy status quo.

Incidents like this tarnish the protest movement by feeding the anti-Protective Edge = anti-Semitic argument.

Now that demonstration is shown to be anti-semitic.

Are there really people who can't tell the difference between that, and criticisms of acts by the state of Israel?

This is only going to get worse now. Islamic terrorists will use this in a recruitment drive. Western foreign policy of allowing the muslim Palestinians to be indiscrimately killed will turn them against the west even more.
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict has always been used to legitimise terrorism in their view. Suicide bombers have been brainwashed by showing them footage after footage of the suffering of the Palestinian people to rile up hate and anger against the zionists and the west. They've got plenty of footage now.

wannabestressfree you've got it all the wrong way round dear, 'these threads' aren't 'unpleasant', tearing children apart is unpleasant.
If it could possibly be any more unpleasant, it's more unpleasant when they are refugee children in a UN safe place.
Is it the truth you find so unpleasant?

The only reason people know the full extent of the horrors inflicted by IDF is the cell phones. I was never aware that they were doing it to this extent since a long time. The corporate media is complicit in this murder of civilians. The twitters I have been following have slowed right down. As electricity is cut across Gaza city charging of phones isn't possible.

Not at all 'dear' if indeed the truth is being told in an unbiased fashion....

One thing that is exceptionally unpleasant, is spectators whooping and cheering as they watch the bombs and shells destroying homes, and killing and maiming the victims.

The posts about it are not one-millionth as unpleasant as the cheering Israeli spectators.

wannabe have a read of Max Hastings' piece in the daily Mail today (I actually can't believe I just wrote that.) It is surprisingly measured, serious, reflective and he seems to be capable of distinguishing between anti Zionism and anti semitism. If Israel's govt has lost the respect of the likes of Max Hastings and the Daily Mail they are on a slippery slope and totally losing the propaganda war.

just read and caught up - needed time away again.

hard reading. have opened all the links and will force myself to read/watch them. if nothing else we are being witnesses and documenting that israel IS being witnessed, that we do see the palestinians nightmare and that not everyone is asleep with a nice comfortable little lullaby of propaganda to send them off into dreams free of cognitive dissonance.

with all the damned monitoring now i wouldn't be at all surprised if names are being collected of those posting stuff on facebook and forums like this - that's fine.

and for the love of god criticising zionism doesn't make you anti semitic - if it did there are a fuck load of anti-semitic jews and rabbis out there.

i hadn't seen this in a while - it is very painful to watch right now but so important to hear.

i feel so powerless.

you can see why people need to believe in hell.

if there is one i should imagine it is much like gaza and ruled by a similarly inhumane despot.

Really power clip honey. Feeling very despondent today. If I, a young mother from the UK, is feeling despondent and tired how must the palestinians be feeling.

this article has more on the farce that is telling people to run and the realities of what that means for palestinians here

i know somewheresafe - you're name is pretty ironic isn't it? we are somewhere 'safe'. i could cry - maybe that makes me 'rabid' or emotional i couldn't care less tbh. if seeing the needless slaughtering of real human lives trapped in a 25mile long strip of land with nowhere to run doesn't make you want to weep or scream or despair then you are not human.

and it's also the utter sinking despair of yet more evidence that our world is being run by psychopaths.

I agree. I'm really upset today and I have no right to be. I'm safe and my kids are safe. But these last 16 days I've seen the nasty underbelly of the world. I was naive to think people would condemn oppression. Don't get me wrong, I oppose the violence of hamas too. But for me this has not been about Hamas. I have seen israel in a new light.

During the last genocide a few years ago I was very detached. I hardly knew that it was happening. Yet this time I feel extremely distressed. The effect of seeing murder and inequality daily for 16 days has effected me more than I realised. Imagine how the palestinians feel living this hell generation after generation.

I've got no right to wallow in self pity on this thread. None at all. I'm just so sad that 16 days in and we are debating the same rhetoric and justification with apologists. Being accused of anti semitism, racism, ignorance. It's almost like the world has flipped it's axis.

Thanks for sharing that HoneyBadger, heartbreaking and moving stuff. I too am feeling the helplessness and despair. I can't get that 2.5 year olds face out of my head. I saw a picture the other day of a husband and wife who had trouble conceiving for 15 years and their first and only child ended up being killed in a rocket attack. Horrible.

There's a lot of Dr Norman Finklestein's quotes and videos coming up on my fb news feed these days. This particular cartoon sums up exactly what is happening now and has been happening for a very long time.

yep and i find it impossible to believe that anyone can't see that watching that FOR REAL, in the flesh, in the flesh of your brother, sister, wife, child, neighbour etc year on year for a lifetime would not end up voting for anyone or anything that promised to resist it and fight back. hell i'd probably be firing missiles myself after a few decades of watching my loved ones murdered and being treated worse than animals on a factory farm with the world standing by doing nothing.

who wouldn't??

yet tons of them aren't, tons of them are working for peace and trying as that woman put it to 'teach life'. people maintaining their humanity in the face of such barbarism is a miracle. maybe THAT is where we get our 'hope' from - that in the face of that people can still love, get married, try to conceive and love a child, not turn into the dehumanised monsters they're being treated as.

i guess that is what the poet meant by saying that palestinians every day are teaching the world LIFE.

if only the end time believers were right.

Cant believe its 'only' been 16 days. Feels like its been much much longer. I wake up with a heavy heart wondering what atrocities the morning has brought for the world to see. Yet, here i am, sitting safely, my kids are safe. How lucky i am.

Is there any merchandise out there, like a scarf or t shirts to show solidarity? So the world can see that the people are with the Palestinians.