GC Feminism and Gaza/Israel

[auberginefortea]

I haven't seen a thread on this yet, and I'm genuinely interested to understand the intersection between different political stances. Where do most posters in this forum stand on Israel/Palestine?

From what I've seen, Julie Bindel has taken quite a strong stance in supporting Israel on Twitter/X. The TRAs I've seen seem to be a lot more pro Gaza/Palestine and anti-Israel.

Is there an intersection between views on gender and Israel/Palestine?

Personally, I'm GC (though not especially strident, more bemused and baffled) and my sympathies naturally lie with Israel (I'm a zionist in that I believe in Jewish State), but I also worry that Israel is going too far.

A two-state solution is surely the answer, but I can’t see it happening easily (if at all), not when both sides want all the land.

Israel doesn't want all the Palestinian territories, and has been willing to agree peace.

They completely pulled out of Gaza. It didn't get them peace with the other side.

There may be some Jewish fundamentalists that think they have a divine right to the land, but that's not Israel's policy.

Yes, this. It was the Palestinians who rejected this initially.

I agree. It's like "tell me what to think".

I feel I should reply to this - my point was not that there is or should be a one to one relationship between issues so that if you take one position on gender/sex, you would or should take a certain position on another seemingly unrelated issue.

My interest in the question is that the reality is that views on unrelated issues are often correlated (think taxation and climate change). I was merely interested in if there was a correlation between GC feminism/transgender activism and Israel/Palestine. I didn't suggest that there should be.

I understood OP.

I think some posters are just a bit sensitive.

Also, GC feminists centre women and the events of 7/10 are likely to be interpreted in particular and possibly similar ways as a result.

I can't really see GC feminists engaging in rape denial.

I'm a gender critical pro-Israel Jew.

My main takeaway from this hellish couple of months online and offline is that the pro-Palestinian/pro-Hamas faction has more than a lot in common with TRAs when it comes to the quality and delivery of their arguments. Rude, offensive, vulgar, doxxing, murderous doesn't even cover it.

FPNFL · Yesterday 15:43

Many Israeli Jews do not support the Israeli government yet both are suffering for their actions.

That’s not really true.

”Poll results were also hawkish when it came to the use of force in Gaza: 57.5% of Israeli Jews said that they believed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were using too little firepower in Gaza,

Those figures are from Oct 23, before the invasion and release of hostages. I very much doubt they apply now, nearly 2 months later. I suggest you edit your post or ask Mumsnet to delete it,

Honestly I think the same about some of the pro-Israel faction here on MN. The amount of reports I've had to make on comments from certain posters posting in support of IDF that are Islamophobic, dehumanising Palestinians, anti-semitic towards Jews who support Palestinians, is mad. Celebrating the death of Palestinian children, blatant racism, insensitivity and denial on posts that are exposing and empathising about what Palestinians are going through. Most definitely not a one way thing.

The question seems to indicate how far we have all gone down the rabbit hole of judging and assessing stances/tribes instead of observing and analysing reality.

this is an interesting point and tbh it really deserves a thread of its own. Because if the last few years have taught me (2nd wave feminist) it is that you can't map anything to do with beliefs onto "tribes" (where tribe would be the political party you either belong to or vote for)

I am fundamentally a socialist with leanings to protecting the environment. But i am literally politically homeless as a 2nd waver (to be clear: Gender is a stupid, dangerous social construct that should have died a death by the 80s). I can't even vote for labour, let alone the greens. So i can't have a politically aligned (tribal) "take" on Gaza / Hamas / Israel because i don't have a political home.

I agree. The parallel I see most strongly is that there are no acceptable words to use to discuss what's happening to Palestinians and the politics surrounding it. There is no short hand for the Israeli government pursuit of a single Israel that isn't interpreted as a sign of Jew hate. Its happened on this thread already.

I'm also concerned about the alignment of European far-right parties behind Israel. Traditionally the far right are not sympathetic to Jews, in fact are usually the most anti semitic. I am concerned its another example of the far right cynically taking a position to stoke culture wars.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/europes-far-right-joins-rallying-cry-against-antisemitism-unsettling-some-jews-2023-11-15/

I agree with you to an extent, @Brefugee, in the sense that the major political parties no longer serve to aggregate a set of related political principles and a large and relatively stable demographic for whom those principles reflect their values.
But we have a different (more painful, destructive and paralysing) kind of tribalism now, which is moderately independent of political party loyalties. On a whole range of issues we have tightly aligned sets of people whose sense of membership of a particular group is wedded to their performance of approval/disapproval and to the policing of what counts as acceptable, expressable opinion.
These little tribes are fractured and puritanical so that there seems to be an increasingly smaller possibility of any of them coming together into the looser tribes, the 'broad churches' of effective political action (ie traditional parties). There is also increasingly smaller scope for nuance, evidence-based flexibility of opinion, etc - in short, less scope for realism and truth seeking.

To answer the OPs question. I don't think it's possible or desirable to reduce opinions and stances to tribal allegiances. It's ultimately reductive and results in stupid arguments like ' you want single sex spaces so you want to eliminate transpeople' .

I find it so frustrating that people deal in labels rather than analysing and discussing the evidence. I'm GC after months if not years of thinking searching out evidence and viewpoints. I'm also aware that some GC people will be responding from a purely emotional or even religious standpoint.

I've done exactly the same with the current situation in Gaza/ Israel and am stunned by the shallowness of the debate.

They said it wouldn't work when the Palestinian side isn’t genuine in wanting to live in peace with Israel.

Happy to address this:

There shouldn't be "two states" without the Palestinians first having a real commitment to peace and accepting a Jewish state as its neighbour. I completely agree. It's a sensible position.

The sentiments currently coming out of Israel about the two state solution are that the Oslo accords failed in their purpose, and as a result a whole new paradigm is now ncesssary. The Palestinian leaders have been turning down two state solutions for over 70 years, and anyone who actually listens to the words of Hamas leaders and other arab leaders in the region, must know that they have no intention of ever accepting the legitimacy, or existence, of Israel, let alone peacefully co-existing side by side.

How can you have a viable two state solution in such a situation? The impetus and the willingness has to come from the Palestinians themselves. It cannot be imposed. That is going to be extremely difficult to achieve, especially when a cpouple of generations have been brought up with " from the river to the sea" and when the international Left is dead set against the existence of Israel and supports the now weeekly marches at which people display overt anti semtism and jew hatred?

Israel exists already. There is no "pursuit" of a single Israel.

The problem arises when this existence, or even right to exist, is denied.

The sentiments currently coming out of Israel about the two state solution are that the Oslo accords failed in their purpose, and as a result a whole new paradigm is now ncesssary. The Palestinian leaders have been turning down two state solutions for over 70 years, and anyone who actually listens to the words of Hamas leaders and other arab leaders in the region, must know that they have no intention of ever accepting the legitimacy, or existence, of Israel, let alone peacefully co-existing side by side.

Yes.

This is a very good summary.

Great post 👏

Traditionally the far right are not sympathetic to Jews, in fact are usually the most anti semitic.
Hm, the far Left has a pretty spectacular record here too. The Soviets spent a chunk of the Cold War churning out poisonous anti-Israel propaganda which underlies a lot of modern Left antisemitism and put some very ignorant tropes into circulation.

The anti semitism of the right has always been more overt; the anti-semitism on the Left hides behind anti zionism and automatic hostility to the existence of Israel. The anti semtism on the Left has its roots in anti capitalist/anti western/anti -materialism - all of which have been associated with Jewry for many hundreds of years.

Marx, even though Jewish himself, wrote some incredibly anti semitic things in his letters to Engels ( calling Jews 'cockroaches', but also suggesting some very racist things about black people). Stalin was on the verge of conducting his own Jewish expulsion before he died. Some Jewish leftists still cling with greater loyalty to their socialist faith than they do to the idea of Zionism. People like Alexei Sayle.

Marx was a philosopher though, who didn't live what he wrote about. Otherwise he'd have been hacking away at the coal face and making sure his family was fed, instead of sitting in a nice warm library while his daughter coughed herself to death. (i may be misremembering some details)

The right is what I'd think of socially conservative and more for the individual than the collective. So AS does sit out there in the open (along with the other isms - race, sex, misogyny etc)

The traditional left is much more ideological and any deviation from the collective norm is not really allowed. It would be tolerated until it is no longer required. So after the revolution and the Jewish members aren't needed now, the AS rears it's ugly head. There has ALWAYS been a problem of misogyny in Revolutionary leftist parties - again, women fighting and pushing a revolution through, then denied any of the big jobs and pushed back to hearth and home. (which is why my own revolutionary party would be led by and mainly made up of women)

I feel like we must be on different forums because I haven't seen anything close to what you're describing.

@mondriansdog show me a thread where anyone has celebrated the death of Palestinian children?

one of the comments I can think of offhand was a poster "appreciating the culmination of the death of Palestinian children because they are all terrorists" or something along those lines. It was rightly deleted by MN for hate speech.

Surprised you don't remember the posts describing Jewish people supporting Palestinians in anti-semitic terms. Rightly deleted by MN for hate speech.

This is exactly what I mean
How can we talk about the fact that Netanyahu's government won't accept a two state solution, and won't accept responsibility for the Palestinian territories, which effectively leaves the Palestinians stateless and unable to do anything about Hamas.

As soon as its raised, some people start with "Israel has a right to exist". Yes it does. I'm not disputing that. The Palestinians have a right to exist too.