Why are so many GC women pro-Israel?

[Krakinou]

This is a feminist forum. It’s in the name. I’m a feminist, therefore logically atheist and frankly anti-religion. Certainly against any kind of religious nationalism (Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, etc.)

But surely feminism is about liberation for all women, not just the ones we agree with? The destruction of patriarchal structures, not of women and children who are conditioned by them?

I constantly see snarky comments in GC articles about Gaza and dehumanizing comments about Palestinians and Muslims generally on this board. And minimizing of the suffering of the tens of thousands of people being murdered in an internationally recognized genocide. I don’t get it. It seems out of sync with the general mumsnet feeling too - I get the impression most people on mumsnet are pretty horrified by Israel’s actions.

Does anyone else get the same impression? If so, what is the connection between being Gender Critical and being anti-Palestine? Is it just that the leftist terfs aren’t so represented here?

I’m in a feminist group in Spain and it doesn’t have the same issue at all.

ThatCyanCat, since the link didn't work, I've posted the full article here.

There is a wide range of views about the current Israeli Government and its policy re Gaza and the West Bank among the Jewish diaspora both in Europe and the US (and in Israel itself of course, see the huge demonstrations these last weeks concerned to have a cease fire and get the hostages back.)

If you read the British Jewish News and the Jewish Chronicle they accept that the Jewish Community in Britain is not united re the current policies of the Israeli Government. Many Jewish Academics and especially Rabbis and Cantors in the US and Britain, have expressed their concern about Netanyahu's policies to keep bombing the Palestinians or deport them.

The Rabbis ( of all persuasions Orthodox to Progressive, are deeply upset that the way the Israeli Government is acting in Gaza and the West Bank does not tally at all with Jewish values that believe all people should be considered and have worth. ( Indeed the Palestinians are themselves a semitic people like the Jews and no doubt (ironically) many even may be descendants of the Jewish peoples who were not part of the diaspora or taken to Babylon.)

Eliza, exactly. All the anti Semitic rhetoric ignores all the nuances of this, ofc.

And yet we knew it happened. The news was out and the world was appalled.

The people are not the UN.

I have never, ever heard a single person glorify the attack and anyone who does so it a POS.

My point is, I will not be told that I don't care about BOTH.

If Israel really wanted to commit genocide then they are not making a very good job of it.

And yet 85% of the dead are civilians 🙄

If Hamas cared about its own people then it would not embed itself amongst civilians;

They're fucking TERRORISTS! Can they be relied on to behave in a fair manner? No. But nor can Israel sacrifice so many civilian lives to get to them.

There is NO excuse for shooting on aid queues.

None.

Nor for incidences such as Red Crescent, which Israel denied even happened until it turned out one of the dead had been recording it!

If you think it's only about a male creator, you haven't heard of Wicca (belief in a God and Goddess as equal).

And one can be a spiritualist and believe in mother nature or a life force that is not male or female. Saying feminists shouldn't be religious is narrow-minded, shallow, ignorant and uneducated. I would expect better from someone that declares themselves a feminist. The overwhelming majority of feminists I know are either religious or have a spiritual belief/beliefs of some kind. It's very rare to find an atheist feminist.

https://www.adl.org/resources/article/anti-israel-protesters-celebrate-one-year-anniversary-hamass-october-7-attacks

Global celebrations on the anniversary of October the 7th.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/mar/29/why-feminists-less-religious-survey

Most UK feminists are atheists or have no religion, survey finds.

Edit: no description of methodology in the article though.

Thanks for this, Eliza. Beyond a ceasefire and return of the remaining hostages, what suggestions are there for ways of obtaining a lasting peace?

The BBC six o'clock news a couple of months ago, maybe? It was not overtly stated that this was the case, but it was more than apparent from what she said.

The BBC would never report in an obvious and open way on such abuses amongst the Palestinian population, in the same way it fails to mention Hamas's commandeering of aid or the execution of civilians for non compliance.

Brighton 7 October memorial to relocate after council public works announcement - Jewish News https://share.google/biauOcYqlzWAb78VK

Good old tolerant Brighton -I would have expected nothing less.
The 7 October memorial in Palmeira Square was set up a month after the massacre in which 1,200 people were murdered – including 18 UK citizens. Since then, the memorial site has featured a nightly service and delivered more than 550 dedications. Visitors to the site have included Chief Rabbi Mirvis, Board of Deputies President Phil Rosenberg, and CO-CEOs of Progressive Judaism Rabbis Charley Baginsky and Josh Levy.The memorial has been vandalised more than 50 times, including being completely destroyed on five occasions – it has been lovingly rebuilt each time. Incidents include the memorial book being slashed as well as faeces smeared across it. Antisemitic leaflets have also been left in the vicinity, and mourners have at times been aggressively harassed. Four arrests have been made associated with crimes committed there

@TempestTost
Spiritually, killing someone might torment you. There are many different value sets in the world, very different moral boundaries. Douglas Murray talks of meeting one of the perpetrators of 7/10, an ordinary looking young man who had done terrible things but evinced no sign of regret or angst.
A 'western liberal' (bearing in mind that liberals have boundaries to their liberality hence the fight back against gender woo and it's repercussions) mindset may not superimpose comfortably everywhere.
The least we can do is form consensus in our own societies of our boundaries, (not celebrating psychopaths as freedom fighters is one of mine). Having read a bit further down thread I also note, pouring your own piss on yourself as per TRAs or smearing faeces on memorial books are things I associate with toddlers or mentally unwell adults.
What I appreciate about fwr (apart from the wit & the bluestocking) is the sensible dissection of ideas. Yes there are occasional moments of barracking but generally it feels like the 'grown-ups' are in charge.😶 As I started that bracketed list I heard Monty python asking what feminism ever did for us....closely followed by Michael Palin ....the chief weapons of fwr are sanity and reasoned debate.....and humour....and (insert name of well informed poster here).....
I'm primarily a STEM bod, identify variables and discern their effect....is it possible to do that to humanity in whole or in part?

Honestly I'm not really sure what you are getting at here? It's clear Israelis are already morally conflicted.

This article mentions all the leftists who celebrated October 7th.
https://fathomjournal.org/progressives-and-the-hamas-pogrom-an-a-z-guide/

No moral conflict among Gazans?

No moral conflict for people in 'liberal western' UK about celebrating what happened on 7/10 or smearing faeces on a memorial book to the victims?

The sentiments you posted are admirable but sadly not universal, not even in the UK - it troubles me (and possibly those who want a stable, functioning society) how widespread the hate is.

That's a grim read.

Has a paragraph that is pertinent given recent actions proscribing Palestinian Solidarity:

'P is for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Manchester PSC released a statement on 7 October, with the pogrom ongoing and before Israel had responded,, titled ‘Manchester Supports The Palestinian Resistance’. It began ‘In a heroic move today, the Palestinian freedom fighters … broke Zionist colonial barriers and entered settlements built on stolen Palestinian land inside 48 Palestine.’ The statement continued: ‘The brave fighters gave us all a glimpse of a liberated Palestine as they took hold of entire Israeli settlements … It is our duty here to express our unconditional support to the Resistance until Palestine is free.’ A speaker at a PSC rally in Brighton said the actions of Hamas had been ‘beautiful and inspiring … we need to celebrate these acts of resistance … revolutionary violence by Palestinians is not terrorism.’ (The middle class crowd whooped.) At a PSC rally in Manchester on 8 October participants shouted for the terrorists who had been slaughtering Jews and called for the annihilation of Israel. They waved banners reading ‘Glory To Palestinian Freedom Fighters’.'

(I think the government have handled the PSC demos badly, for what its worth, but this gives a bit of background to the organisation's history).

Noting also:

'S is for the (UK) Socialist Workers Party: ‘The Palestinians have every right to respond in any way they choose to the violence that the Israeli state metes out to them every day. Victory to the Resistance.’ Later, as if fearing they may lose first place in this pogrom-apologist Olympics, Socialist Worker ran the headline ‘Rejoice as Palestinian resistance humiliates racist Israel’. Note that: Rejoice. On 4 November demonstrators took over Charing Cross train station concourse in London, waved Socialist Worker placards, surrounded the poppy sellers from the Royal British Legion, and chanted ‘There is only one state, Palestine ’48!’ a call for the destruction of Israel.'

The reason why GC women are pro Israel is that logically they are not going to side with the misogynistic Islamists who run Gaza. They've also seen how the far left Hamasniks have chucked women under the bus with their pro trans stance.

The anti semitic left and Islamism goes back a long way. The seeds were germinated in Communist Russia when the Bolsheviks perceived their Muslim population as more oppressed than others and were not as harsh with them as the Christian religion. From the seventies onwards, the post colonial Marxist academics in universities glorified the "Arab resistance" especially through the influential works of Frantz Fanon and Edward Said. The Baader Meinhof terrorists and the IRA had extensive relations with the Palestinians. Leading Western and Marxist academics supported the Khomenei regime and the overthrow of the Shah. Judith Butler described Hamas and Hezbollah as "progressive revolutionaries who are part of the left." The fall of the former Communist regimes in Eastern Europe meant the only cause they had to hang their hat on were the Palestinians.

This is very true.
according to a 2014 paper by Wallace Edward Brand, “In 1972, the Kremlin decided to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the U.S. As KGB chairman Yury Andropov told me [said Soviet defector Major General Ion Pacepa], a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few million. We needed to instill a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world, and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporters, the United States. No one within the American/Zionist sphere of influence should any longer feel safe.” …

The Protocols of Zion came out of Russia. I think we underestimate the long game being played at a global level. I wonder what would happen if Israel was eradicated, what next?

I dare you to post that on the citme board. (Actually it'll be insulted, it's author discredited, then eventually ignored.)

Just scanned his obituary. Interesting man.

Russia is cunning, China is cunninger.

Both of them would ruthlessly deal with Islamists if troubled by them, and both are too big to care.

The west as we know it would implode with a whimper.

.....in one of many alternative universes

Sorry discredited by who? Are you denying Russia's meddling in the ME?

I guess the people of Israel and the people in Gaza, the West Bank etc have to come to some sort of agreement like the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. Ie when both sides are sick of the blood shed and the price both sides are paying is no longer acceptable. Democracy and consideration .needs to be offered to everyone. I hope there is a large number of people on both sides who are now thinking of a ceasefire and a compromise solution.

Privilege for anyone set of people over another must be deemed unfair. There will no doubt still be people who don't agree but if their own people ie the population in Israel and the population in Gaza, the West Bank etc vote for the settlement hopefully it leaves those who won't agree isolated and voted out of power.

It may take outside guarantors or intervention to guarantee it. As the US and Britain and the Irish Government guaranteed the GFA. It must be put to a vote of all the people on both sides.