Part 5: 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.

Thread 4 - in which Operation Protective Edge was examined further and we looked at the different views from inside Israel and the international community.

Another reminder of the Mumsnet Talk Guidelines.

I have really received masses of information from reading these threads,so thank you to all of the posters who have put links up.

Apart from the usual - writing to my MP (no response yet), boycotting Israeli products, trying to share information via social media, I was wondering what else I could do.

I've been a member of Kiva for some time now, where you can make loans of $25 and upwards, to micro finance individual borrowers. When my loan is repaid, I just re-lend it. Looking on the site tonight, I noticed 13 loans for borrowers from Palestine, and think that I will probably begin to lend in particular to Palestine in the future.

There is some more information on Kiva's work and financial partners in Palestine in this blog post.

I'm a kiss member too and had no idea they had borrowers in palestine. Thank you for that info.

Kiva not kiss!

nancery how was your meeting?

Here's a recent Kiva update from July, with more information about how the violence is affecting their work in Palestine.

thanks for the Kiva link zhx3. What a fantastic way to help. Will be joining up. I remember reading about a micro finance organisation in Bangladesh many years ago and was amazed at what a huge difference it makes to the people.

As for Israel, it is becoming an increasingly intolerant place to live in. it certainly feels like it is no place for a leftist to be in at the moment. From what i have read, it has a race hierarchy. I wonder if the right wing weren't spouting venom about the Palestinians, whether they would turn on another minority group within Israel.

So pleased that the school is not taking any action against the head boy. I am shocked that there are Israeli apologists out there who cannot stand a jewish boy supporting humanity.

I have just re donated to 3 palestinian women via kiva. It really is a great organisation. I've been re lending the same £100 for years now.

this is Israel today

Who in their right mind can possibly support what the right wing Israeli government is doing?

UK public knows that Israel acted disproportionately against the Palestinians.

The tide is slowly turning in USA too amongst the younger adults.

source Guardian:

Polls show a gradual shift in American public opinion, mostly generational. While a clear majority of Americans overall support Israel's assault on Gaza as self-defence, a Pew poll last month showed diminishing support for Israel among younger Americans. Over-65s backed Israel over the Palestinians by nearly seven to one. Among young adults, aged 18-29, that support fell to just two to one in favour of Israel.

That appears in part to be because younger Americans are getting their news from sources other than mainstream television and newspapers. Israel's 2009 assault on Gaza helped boost support for the Palestinian cause on US college campuses because the internet offered access to a much greater variety of reports, analysis and opinion, much of it from outside the US.

Majesticwine-
was this a joke? have you heard of the holocaust?

Well yes of course I have. I have also heard of slavery and black and white segregation.

But every black person that I know including family members don't bring it up in a way that they feel everyone is still out to get them. They don't go on and on like they are second class citizens. Despite the fact that they have experienced racism in a way that I have never seen or heard any Jewish person has. Black men especially still struggle in a way that white men don't through racial profiling. I wouldn't say that this is true for Jewish men.

It's like world war 2, We're not really shifty around Germans now and paranoid that they want to invade England. Even though this was a very real threat. I just don't understand why they feel like everyone still hates them. Because from what i've experienced people don't really register Jews in a negative way. I've moved around a lot and like I said the only thing I've overheard about them is that they are good business people. Nothing negative, where as I've heard an abundant of negative things about every other minority over the years. Where it be a ''joke'' or blatant racism.

If someone wanted to insult you I doubt Jew would ever be their first choice of insults. Other minorities are insulted daily especially lots of muslims, but they don't have the notion that everyone hates them and wants them dead.

I'm not forgetting the holocaust, but that doesn't reflect on what is happening NOW, or feelings towards Jews NOW. Everybody I know feels great sympathy and sorrow over the holocaust. Also we must remember it was a minority inflicting such horror. Not the world collectively wanting all Jews dead.

Now do you see my point more clearly?

Black people do feel persecuted by the police in many countries. Especially young black men.

I know I don hence my racial profiling comment, but they don't bring up slavery and segragation all the time in relation to the racism that is still continually present.

Where as Jewish people bring up the holocaust, but I don't see the continued presence of ill feeling towards Jews that was behind the holocaust.

*they do (not I don)

Saw this link on another thread:
How to criticise Israel without being anti-Semitic

Interesting:

i have to say actually even in egypt, and in sinai in particular as we had a lot of israeli's coming in after finishing national service or whilst on leave and they could be incredibly difficult tourists to deal with, whilst there was oh god we've got israeli's to take out today get ready for it (arrogance, beligerence, treating you like you were a twat because you were female and non israeli and who does SHE think she's telling what to do - and when you're taking overly confident people diving you really do need to be able to tell them what to do and have them listen) it was never about jews. i never heard anyone say 'bloody jews' today or jewish people are so... (insert insult).

there was no mention of religion, it was based on nationality and based, for most people, in an awareness that it wasn't all israelis but arrogant puffed up young men who were in a particular mentality state after being in the military for a while.

the koran tells muslim that we are all people of the book, it does say that each of the preceding people fucked it up somewhat re: the jews lending money and various incursions on the law and the christians are seen as perverting monotheism by making a god out of a prophet. so the religion teaches that those preceding it made mistakes but it doesn't tell them to hate but to see as being under the same broad umbrella.

where you see supposedly 'muslim' extremism imo, it is, as always when religion is hijacked, political extremism. religion is a handy vehicle because someone is (apologies) already brainwashed to a certain degree and that brainworm can be exploited to brainwash further and that belief be facilitated to politically brainwash someone in such a way as to attach to something seen as sacred. presumably the same brain worm is exploited by israeli leaders when manipulating people and programming fear and loathing of an enemy that allows for inhumane behaviour to be committed.

again it is power and corruption that is the enemy. it's unfortunate that the corrupt and powerful have always abused religion as a way of justifying themselves, hiding the real strings of power and making people fight for what they believe is holy or just when it is in fact just power play and politics again and again and again.

that's all my opinion obviously. i just really don't believe this is about religion. it's a well used misdirect that we all need to get past and stop being manipulated by.

Goldvelvet, were any of your grandparents murdered? Imagine, for a minute that they had been: two or three of them. Would it be possible that you would not be profoundly affected? Hardly likely, no? Well, it was true for both my parents.

It is not for you to tell any minority that they are wrong to feel concerned. Three of my four grandparents fled the Nazis, and they each saw brothers, sisters, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins killed in the Holocaust. And although the Holocuast was on a horrifically larger scale, Being killed by antisemites has been part of the Jewish experience in Europe for more than a thousand years. Many of my ancestors died in pogroms at the hands of Cossacks, for example.

So this threat of death is both extremely longstanding and only just outside living memory in my family, and within living memory for many other families.

I hope that Europe is irrevocably changed, and of course my grandparents sought refuge in the UK because antisemitic persecution has always been lower intensity here compared to the continent. But this history is not something I will simply consider as of academic interest. It is much too personal for that.

of course people's grandparents were killed - many will have lost them fighting in world war II here for example. a lot of my grandparents generation was lost. it is extremely personal for a lot of families.

but how does that excuse murdering children? how does it excuse treating another people with such inhumanity? it wasn't even the arabs (who most of the hate and dehumanisation is aimed at) who perpetuated these crimes.

yes it's understandable to have a fear of persecution in the cultural memory but it's rational to distinguish between that and reality and to know that ok, that is a part of our pscyhological make up because of these events but it is not a danger today. the lesson was learnt and learnt so thoroughly that people are probably more careful about and more cleansed of anti-semitism than they are of any other prejudice or racist thoughts, words and deeds.

i am not being flippant btw. i'm not saying it's not understandable for a cultural group to bear the scars of it's history but those scars cannot and do not excuse brutality.

i also don't believe being abused as a child is an excuse for going on to be an abuser. nor does the legal system. likewise the international legal system should not excuse the sins of the children on the grounds of sins against the grandparent.

honeybadger, you're mis-reacting. I'm not suggesting that the Holocaust excuses Israeli abuses. I'm saying that I reject the premise of goldvelvet's posts, which was that it wasn't appropriate for Jews today to "bring up the Holocaust" (a direct quote).

I didn't say it wasn't appropriate for them to bring it up full stop. I just said I don't see the correlation between the holocaust and treatment of Jews today. So to bring it up in that context isn't relevant to me.

I have never seen or heard any ill feeling towards Jews, which other posters have backed up. I don't think that they are a minority that gets a lot of negative attention or hate in England or around the world. I personally feel that Black people & muslims do to a much greater extent. I have only personally heard positive things about Jews (until Israel's recent actions)

We have all heard horrible things about other races and religions. People's sexual preferences etc. as children and as adults. But not Jews hence why I was perplexed why there is this idea that they are a hated nation/race (outside of the actions of the holocaust which wasn't a global feeling towards Jews).

The holocaust was devastating but doesn't sum up the feeling of many but of few with-in a moment in time in history. It shouldn't be forgotten, nor do I think it should be used as a basis of how people view Jews now.

HomeHelpMeGawd- Do you understand what I am saying now?

Does everybody else understand what I'm saying? I thought I was being quite clear but I keep getting quoted out of context.

Goldvelvet - I am Jewish and my family have been here since the end of the 19th century.

In the last month I have seen a swastika graffitied on a house on the next road

I have heard of incidents of people being physically assaulted on a bus for talking to each other about Israel

I have seen the pictures of graffiti on synagogues of "child murder" and heard the accounts of the chants people use on the anti-Israel demonstrations. Do you consider "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas" anti-semitic? I do.

I have heard accounts of people having conversations with strangers not aware that they are Jewish and being told in pleasant conversation "It's disgusting what' going on in Gaza. It's a shame Hitler didn't finish the job"

I have seen attempts to organise a silent boycott of a synagogue on Friday night by having lots of people standing around staring at Jews going into the synagogue.

blog.thecst.org.uk/ this is the communal organisations report on the last month.

Given a history of persecution and a more recent history of violence against Jews throughout the world it makes me query whether the next thing we are going to see here are things like this or this or much much worse because if you look back at history this is where these things start.

So look around, look at the amount of emphasis that is put on this conflict to the exclusion of all others, the language used and have a think where that might end up.

and this was in May so before the current war.