Part 4: Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[AndHarry]

New thread again.

Thread 1 - started when 3 Israeli boys were found murdered.

Thread 2 - in which we mainly discussed Operation Protective Edge.

Thread 3 - in which we continued to discuss Operation Protective Edge, the wider conflict and international involvement.

Welcome to part 4, in which I hope it's not too much to ask that we stick to the MN Talk Guidelines

As many people have asked about Syria, I'm pleased to say that a new discussion on that subject has been started (by another poster here.

Sergeant do you dispute the findings of the UN and news agencies which state 80% of dead a
Were civilian?

Are you saying every young Arab man in Gaza is a hamas fighter?

Ridiculous.

I was also very sad to see the poor grieving father of one of the dead Israeli soldiers, saying explicitly that Palestinians don't care as much for their children as they (Israelis) do.
If they believe that, what hope, really.

Halfdrunkcoffee: "For all you know they are all paid-up members of Jewish Voice for Peace. Not every Jewish person in the world agrees with the actions of the Israeli government."

Exactly. Jewish people are as diverse as any other group.

I luffs David Attenborough even more now.

sergeant - the list I've seen had approx 300 confirmed Palestinian fighters, and a few hundred 'not knowns'.

Either way with a death toll now of over 1800, it means over 1000 civilian deaths and equals war crimes by the Israeli army. Certainly according to Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and many others.

Agreed, wordsmith. I've seen a lot of prominent Jewish people speak out against Israel's actions. Naomi Wolf has been absolutely amazing, relentless in getting information out there.

Has anyone else seen this article by a young man describing what life is like for Palestinians in Jerusalem?
It's shocking, they sound like they're living in absolute fear.

Backinthering: "I was also very sad to see the poor grieving father of one of the dead Israeli soldiers, saying explicitly that Palestinians don't care as much for their children as they (Israelis) do.
If they believe that, what hope, really."

That is a very, very sad attitude.

If there's just one thing I would love anyone reading this thread to take away, it's this: You know that "other group" - the one that is different from your own group (whatever group that may be): they are exactly the same as you and your group, no matter what anyone tells you. We are all human beings. All of us have very similar hopes and fears and ambitions, good points and bad points.

I think the ultimate lie detector when dealing with any propaganda about the other group is to say: Would that apply to the average person in my group?

In the context of the Israel/Palestine discussion - When we are told that Palestinian mothers are very happy to sacrifice their children and in fact that they are actually causing the deaths of their own children out of some sort of mad fanaticism, one has to ask, "Would the average Israeli or South African or English or American mother do this?" The answer is clearly no and hence this is just nonsensical propaganda.

wordsmith, do you think they see the footage in Israel of people's reactions to their children and loved ones' deaths? AndHarry, could you ask your family over there?
I don't know how anyone who has seen the footage of the absolute shock, grief and devastation of those poor people could think even for a second that they loved their children and families less.
It's certainly been one of the things I've found hardest to see.

Backinthering at the moment it wouldn't be appropriate for me to ask as a young man they knew from birth was killed in the fighting last week and they are in deep grief over his death. I'll certainly ask at a better time though.

I just copied and pasted something from an article in an American paper people of the Jewish people that run media companies in America? Why is that being censored?

*the names of the Jewish people. Someone asked the question so I googled and found the information that is all. Anyone could do the same.

Goldvelvet - here's a list of Catholic directors of FTSE 100 companies. Maybe they all support the IRA - er, no - maybe that is a slightly silly idea, but not as idiotic as yours.....

I'm sorry to hear of their loss AndHarry.

No idea Backinthering. I would imagine with the Internet though that people will see quite a lot. I certainly hope so. During that Channel 4 interview with the Israeli and Palestinian mothers, I think Jamie the Israeli mother said she surfed the Internet a bit. I think she was just so fearful though with her own sons being in the IDF that she didn't seem to have much empathy with the Palestinian mother.

At what point did I say they support or didn't ''anything'' did I though? Nor did the person that wrote the Article! Just the fact that they were Jewish and ran a large media corporations. They are the facts....

*didn't support

That was a weird interview. She seemed to have as you say little or no empathy for just how many magnitudes worse and more dangerous the Palestinian mother's situation was. Although, she kept tripping up and stumbling, you could almost see the cognitive dissonance in action.
I appreciate she must be very frightened for her son though.
That bastard Netanyahu and his ilk have a great deal to answer for.

Goldvelvet I know you've only joined Mumsnet very recently but most people on here don't see this as a Jewish/Muslim conflict and tbh it's offensive to present any group at all as some sort of homogenous mass with an identical point of view.

It was an infuriating interview. I kept wanting the interview to say 'yes we know your son's life is vey important and sacred but don't you think other children's lives are even a little bit important'. That woman really typified the view of people who are living in stolen land. They cannot give a moment's thought to the misery they have created.

Er, I think the David Attenborough thing isn't genuine. Here

It was a very alarming interview. It's amazing how fear can just kill empathy and how politicians can ruthlessly exploit that for their own ends.

wordsmith- I joined mumsnet 8 years ago when I first pregnant with my eldest ds and have had lots of different names over those 8 years depending on my mood, the season etc.

I was literally just answering a question that someone else posted. You can google that same question and get the same answer. I don't group all Jewish people together and recognise it as a faith as well as a nation. They are just the facts. Like the majority of people that run an Indian Restaurant are muslims. I'm not shaming muslims if I name them.

Not once have I said that being a Jew = this and if you are a Jew you must believe X, Y & Z if you read back my posts you will find that I actually said that my anger is towards the Israeli Army & Government. NOT JEWS

I'm an atheist so don't tend to enter arguments about religion. I apologise if anyone took it the wrong way. But facts are facts.

Hello people. Just dropping in to report I've e-mailed my MP and been boycott food-shopping. I was surprised how very little produce there was from Israel. Lychees only. Even the avocados were from Peru.

Bit of a sollipsistic post - but I'm going to catch up on the reading. Hope today has been a good one for everyone here.

I saw the man who lost his soldier son on C4 too. Very sad but couldn't believe he was saying Palestinians loved their children less than Israelis. His government have lied to him and misled him and now his son is dead

"It's amazing how fear can just kill empathy and how politicians can ruthlessly exploit that for their own ends." - totally agree wordsmith
Interesting article in Independent yesterday
www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/israelgaza-conflict-what-has-israel-achieved-in-26-bloody-days-9644508.html?origin=internalSearch

particularly this part

"When I was a correspondent in Jerusalem between 1995 and 1999, I came to believe that there was another reason, to do with the political psychology of Israelis, which explained why they fought these bloody but futile wars. This was put well by Uri Avnery, the Israeli writer and peace activist, who wrote that the Israeli army is filled with "teenagers who are indoctrinated from the age of three in the spirit of Jewish victimhood and superiority". The same is true of much of the rest of Israeli society. Israelis genuinely feel they are the main victims deserving international sympathy, even when 1,400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli shells and bombs compared with just three Israeli civilians and one Thai worker killed by Hamas's rockets and mortars.

Every opponent of Israel, however puny, is treated by Israeli governments and much of the Israeli media as representing an existential threat. Any retaliatory violence is therefore justified, whether the targets are Palestinians, Lebanese or the 10 Turks killed on board the flotilla of boats trying to bring aid to Gaza in 2010. This sense of permanent persecution, born of pogroms and the Holocaust, is understandable but makes Israelis peculiarly vulnerable to demagogues manipulating their sense of threat. Israeli spokesmen have triumphantly pointed to polls showing that 90 per cent of Israelis currently support Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, but this lack of contrary opinion about a venture so unlikely to do Israel much good is, in reality, a sign of weakness in a nation."

justasecond, interesting article. Scary point that someone like Isis might gain a foothold in Gaza if Hamas is eradicated. What a terrible thought, the last thing Gaza needs.