Basically another thread which may as well be I hate the Jews

[JaneDoeHere]

Just so sick of it. Every time I blink there seems to be another thread asking about Israel and Palestine.
usual narrative of Israel = bad and Palestine = good.
Besides people bending over backwards talking about “geo-politics” we all know that most of it is thinly veiled antisemitism.
Why oh why is it allowed?
Anyway, I’m off visiting family this weekend so I’m looking forward to that. And all the other Jew haters can just leave us alone as I have nothing else to say! Refocusing my energy on positive thoughts.

And thank you for all of you who speak up on the vile middle East threads. You give me hope... Sometimes I look at these threads, specifically because of you! In the beginning I did the same for a bit but it was too horrible and bad for my mental health, so I stopped.

I missed that one. I wonder why it was deleted.

I’ve never heard of the term Israelophobia, but hey if the duck quacks! And it’s very true for what it is!

lots of us have said similar things about saying stuff at whichever point and then having to have a break for mental health.

we have each other.

@blackcherryconserve it has since been deleted but it was this title.

And yet another crap thread 'Israel debates the right to rape' - if that isn't the goadiest one yet. And allowed to stand by the mods!

Yes, there's a book called "Israelophobia", I'm not new to antisemitism but this one was quite an eye opener for me.

I reported it as soon as it appeared, I said even the title was unacceptable, and the topic was not appropriate to FWR. I got a burbly reply about not being able to verify everything that is posted, exchange of opinion blah blah.

I've maintained a presence on the thread, I just posted something about British attitudes to 'our boys' in N. Ireland, because I think there is SO much hypocrisy about the record of the British in Ireland. Holier than thou about Israel, ignoring their own history.

I'm sorry you have to put up with such stuff. It upsets me deeply, so I can only imagine bad it is for you. Really sorry, and sending heartfelt support.

Thank you for reporting it MarieDeGournay

Oh by the way, full disclosure: I am Irish, and we are a bunch of hypocrites too, I am ... I think the word I need is aghast at public opinion and foreign policy about Israel/Palestine here. I understand it as little as I condone it. Shameful.

What's very tricky about the Ireland situation is that while most contemporary Irish people aren't antisemitic in my opinion I do think part of the background is historical Irish antisemitism. Most Irish people don't actually know any Jews, or even really the history of Israel and the mandate, and have assigned jews and Palestinians roles corresponding to the Irish conflict (and of course the ties between the IRA and Palestinian groups). In their minds, Israeli Jews simply correspond to Ulster Protestants, and it's not the same. And as I said either here or in another thread even the British themselves are often ignorant of a lot of the history of the mandate.

The matching of the Irish quest for nationhood with that of the Palestinians is, as you say, simplistic. that's probably why it has been so successful - no thinking required😠
Unfortunately it took hold spectacularly - in a way that kind of reminds me of how trans ideology was so successful in Ireland. A great, and admirable, national sympathy for the underdog, but accompanied by an inability to identify who the underdog actually is.

And just as trans rights activists seem to delight in the chance to be sexist and misogynistic, even to the point of being violent to women, because 'hey, we're on the right side of history', the Gaza conflict has been a lens for all the latent antisemitism, because 'hey, we didn't say Jews, we said Israelis, so how dare you call us antisemitic...'

I'd like to think that the flag-wavers [who haven't been out marching for quite a while now.. moved on to some other fashionable cause?] are the noisy ones who get all the attention, and that there's a silent majority here who have a more informed and nuanced view of Israel/Palestine.

Well, there's me, for one...😶

@MarieDeGournay it’s good to hear something from a perspective of someone who is Irish.
To my shame I have found this ferocious stance from Ireland (I know I’m generalising) Very personal. Plus the lack of Jews in Ireland. I married into an Irish family and I have been toying with difficulties in my head due to this stance.

I guess I could say this about anyone really, but the aggression from Bambi - Eurovision was another thing I noticed.

It’s interesting to hear you say about it not being a simple par on par example with independence etc.

I went through a phase of observing some of the posts on the Muslim mumsnetters section. Was saddened but not shocked to read clear anti jewish comments at times whilst you lot were discussing chicken soup with no anti Muslim derogatory snidey comments at all. Such a shame. Culturally we are similar and should be side by side. I wasn't brought up to dislike Muslims. Fortunately I know many some of which are good friends so they don't all hate us 😊 . At times I do see a two tiered monitoring here. Makes you wonder whose been employed to monitor discussions.......they should be impartial like the BBC..... 😁

Apologies if I have missed the boat on the Irish/ Palestinian question @JaneDoeHere @MarieDeGournay . I am neither Jewish nor Irish. But I find the parallels between ulster Protestants and Israel quite interesting, After all, Ian Paisley started an “ Ulster friends of Israel “ society and many ulster Protestants undoubtedly see parallels: the primacy of religious text, the claim to land legitimised by the creator, seeing oneself as a victim of terrorism at the hands of a hostile population which also claims ancestral rights to said land. I am in no way trying to be provocative but these are matters where symbolism and emotional identification with a cause have weight and so I find it unsurprising that in turn Irish Catholics will tend towards sympathy with the Palestinians.

🙄

@TheGander i think at its basic level its even simpler - the PLO and the IRA both saw themselves as freedom fighters and trained and supported each other, The Protestant groups therefore supported the enemy of the IRA, Israel and the Jewish state. Even now in Belfast you will see Palestinian flags in Catholic areas and Israeli flags in Protestant areas.

Yes I have seen the flags and to me it’s clear there is an identification between some ulster Protestants and Israel, and between republicans and the Palestinians.

The weakness in the Unionist claim to Northern Ireland is that they are the descendants of actual settlers - not debatable/name-calling/ideological settlers, but actual settlers who were brought from England and Scotland to repopulate the province of Ulster which had been ethnically cleansed of native Irish people.
They have no ancient historical claim to the province of Ulster.

They've been there a long time and would be as welcome as the flowers in May as Irish if they weren't so antagonistic to the people they replaced. But they insist on being British not Irish, and Northern Ireland (like the other 26 counties prior to independence) has a history of discrimination and violence against the descendants of the displaced population, i.e. the Nationalist population.

I suppose the evangelical ultra-Protestants like the Paisleys like to see themselves as having some kind of divine right to own Ulster - or at least the six counties of the nine counties of Ulster that didn't have too many pesky Catholics in them. But they got it by force of arms, not by divine right.

So historically speaking, the Jewish relationship with Israel/Palestine and the Unionist-Protestant relationship with Ulster are very dissimilar. Diametrically opposed, even.

Yeah I know, try telling that to a Palestinian-flag-waving protester😠

PS I just came on here in the first place to express my heartfelt support to you.

I don't intend to keep going on and on and on...🙄 about Ireland here, it just came up and I easily get carried away talking about Irish history and society.
I'll stop now unless you want me to answer something specific about Ireland and Jewishness/ anti-semitism. It's your thread.

Sending love and support.

@MarieDeGournay thank you for coming on and also for explaining a bit about as some one from Ireland.
The Jewish thing aside, there is a lot of history we don’t get taught considering we’re neighbouring countries and the past!

If only others could also recognise how it’s not actually a similar comparison!

Familiar user names popping up on current post in CIME.

I really don’t know how much more targeted Israel could have been with attacking terrorists but it turns out it’s still not enough!!! I wonder why.

I agree @JaneDoeHere. Israel targeted hezbollah-issued pagers. If you have one of those pagers, you're a terrorist. To call it an indiscriminate attack is laughable. There's some great posting going on explaining what's been happening on the Lebanese Israeli border and hezbollah's actions though some particular posters remain wilfully obtuse.

Yes, its extraordinary the sympathy for the poor innocent terrorists. The mods don't seem to get that the antisemitism lies not just in the words of individual posts but the weight of the sheer volume of threads and obsessive scouring of the internet to find anything to criticise Israel with. I can only imagine how dispiriting it is.

I’ve got to about page 8 on that thread and have given up for now. Some posters don’t seem to understand what has happened and are imagining giant explosives going off left right and centre. There is only so much hate because, well we all know why!

The mods don't seem to get that the antisemitism lies not just in the words of individual posts but the weight of the sheer volume of threads and obsessive scouring of the internet to find anything to criticise Israel with.

This is it exactly. They don't look into an individual's posting history unless you really push them on it or give them the examples yourself.