Israel / Palestine

I mean, no.

Palestine is a region that has existed for thousand of years, but was largely occupied by different empires and leaders, of which the recent period goes Ottoman Empire > British Mandate > UN Partition. The UN partition being post WW2, and is what created the State of Palestine at the same time as creating the State of Israel... but Palestine as a "country"... well we typically mean country in a legal, sovereign, state way... rather than a geographic region. The UK being a country, the British Isles being a region... sure this is confused by the word Palestine being used for both, and further confused by Palestinian people being the historical term for people of all religions who occupied the region of Palestine regardless of who ruled at the time (Palestinian people being a valid term at the same time that referring to them as Ottomans is valid as these are not mutually exclusive).

There's a very long wikipedia page on this stuff ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine ) , but it was covered in secondary school too (at least the state one I went to).

I agree with all of that, but I'm trying to give Israel's left wingers a bit of credit for their humanitarian, progressive thinking. They get ignored in the UK but if you read their words it's striking how similar they are to the pro-Palestine voices in our country. If you or I lived in Israel, I reckon we'd get pretty pissed off with the whole world assuming that we want to bathe in Palestinian blood. Assuming that Netanyahu = Israel is the foundation of modern anti-semitism. We see that everywhere. It's as wrong as the whole world thinking that all the British support Tory plans to send migrants to Rwanda.

The distinction, if it's valid, is that there hasn't been an election in Palestine since 2006, whilst there have been 8 in the same period in Israel. It's hard to argue that the Israeli government isn't more representative of the people's current wishes than Palestines.

(There is a wrinkle that some of those elections happened because a majority wasn't met so weak coalitions had to be formed, but still I think the picture is quite different between the two)

This all feeds into our personal feelings about Jewish people. I wonder how much latent anti-semitism there is here? (Please no mention of Corbyn.) Many Europeans in occupied countries were enthusiastic participants in the Holocaust. If the UK had been occupied I'm sure there'd have been plenty of Brits helping to load the cattle cars.

And Palestine having been a region, there are Palestinian descended people in surrounding countries. For example 50% of Jordan’s current population is descended from West Bank Palestinians, with 2 million current Palestinian refugees.

In 1970, the PLO tried to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy, so if things had gone a different way, Palestine might be where Jordan is now.

The PLO wasn’t the best advert or advocate for the Palestinian diaspora…

I'd argue it was a nation state under the Ottomans and also regarded as a known area under that name
https://www.dailysabah.com/feature/2018/05/18/400-years-of-peace-palestine-under-ottoman-rule
When the Roman's invaded Britain it wasn't a unifide state, it was run by separate tribes and yet was recognised as a single place, much like Gaul or Hispania. We don't regard the celts who fought back against the Romans as an upstart nation because they hadn't codified a constitution.
Hammas is a response to being invaded, they want the invaders gone. Israel recognised they were taking over someone elses land from day 1.

https://imeu.org/article/what-leading-israelis-have-said-about-the-nakba

Yosef Weitz, director, Jewish National Fund Land Settlement Committee
(1932-1948):

"...the transfer of [Palestinian] Arab population from the area of the
Jewish state does not serve only one aim--to diminish the Arab
population. It also serves a second, no less important, aim which is
to advocate land presently held and cultivated by the [Palestinian]
Arabs and thus to release it for Jewish inhabitants." (from Expulsion
Of The Palestinians, p. 94-95)

"It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both
peoples...If the Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and
spacious for us...The only solution is a Land of Israel...without
Arabs...There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the
neighboring countries, to transfer all of them, save perhaps for [the
Palestinian Arabs of] Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the old Jerusalem. Not
one village must be left, not one tribe." (from Benny Morris, The
Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, p. 27)

"Once again I come face to face with the land settlement difficulties
that emanate from the existence of two people in close
proximity...only population transfer and evacuating this country so it
would become exclusively for us is the solution. " (from Expulsion Of
The Palestinians, p. 132)

but I'm trying to give Israel's left wingers a bit of credit for their humanitarian, progressive thinking

that's fair.

most of my info comes from colleagues I speak with most days who are fairly left wing and Jewish, but not resident in Israel... feels like everything I hear is third hand at best, and hard to find evidence of in the Western press.

the consensus amongst my colleagues friends and family (so this is a small sample size) is that their relatives and friends really do not want what is happening, and do not want to be doing this, and some are doing military service and do not want to be where they are. yet at some level they do believe that what they're doing is necessary to some degree... so even my chats with my colleagues are strained, as it's hard for them to separate right and wrong from the mess of everything.

certainly for me, I have no idea what's happening there. I've never visited, I'm not resident, I'm in this comfy terrace house in London, and have no direct experience and rely (like virtually everyone here) on whatever reaches us via the bias of the multitude of intermediaries.

my take is fairly simple on it, all lives are valued equal and there is a huge amount of suffering going on, and that suffering won't begin to reduce whilst weapons are being used and support can't get in and help people.

I think people have been very consistent in keeping Israel (govt) and Israel (civilians) very separate and have seen very little conflation in this thread

Hamas wants the invaders gone sure.
But their version of liberation is not just Gaza and West Bank, but all lands currently comprising Israel, and expelling or killing all non Muslims.

So? You're still trying to claim Hammas is equally as bad as Israel has treated the Palestinian people. Strong words and some home made missiles aren't the same as a $4b military and a 50 year apartheid

I noted that the news outlets have adjusted their wording to reflect the uncertainty of who did what. But the number of deaths is still reported as 500.

What frightens me is that whether Hamas or IDF caused the hospital explosion, Hamas know that the death of innocent Palestinians is probably their most powerful political and military weapon.

If someone at Hamas decided to blow up a mosque in Gaza and blame it on Israel…

Interesting post, this.

A Jewish bloke who is an acquaintance through cycling, rather than a close friend, and who I consider to be level-headed. He is clearly outraged - through what I have seen him post on socials - that there isn’t more western support for Israel (as a state). I’ll cite the Wembley arch FA decision as something he was livid about.

My inference - and some will probably tell you I’m wrong - is that he sees criticism of Israel as criticism of Jewish people. Which couldn’t be further from the truth, in any right-thinking hive mind.

I know some Jewish people I'd regard as very smart and level headed. One has even referring to eating meat as basically a holocaust. They have unwavering support for Israel and their govt.

I don’t support Israel’s treatment of Palestinians at all, I think it’s horrible and tragic.

However, saying Hamas only uses strong words and some home made missiles is pretty reductive and coldly minimising the killings of unarmed Israelis only a few days ago.

I actually think Hamas (not Palestinians) are a lot worse than the Israeli leadership. In their aims and goals, their methods, I dread to think of the horrors if they had a matched military budget, (1% of Israel’s budget currently)

That's a hive mind that doesnt have the perspective and experience of being Jewish, whether in Israel or the diaspora.

There's an argument for anti-zionism being antisemitic, insofar as Jewish people in Israel are beset from 3 sides by those by that, to some degree, don't recognise their right to a homeland (or to exist, in some cases).

Against that backdrop, it's not a big leap to understand that viewpoint.

It does appear, however, that this is disingenuously leveraged by the hawks of the Israeli leadership, and elsewhere, as validation for expansionist Zionism, whereby any criticism is decried as antisemitic.

I agree with your conclusion.

My take in a nutshell. The Hamas attack was an atrocity, Israel's collective punishment of Gaza is an atrocity. However, it is very difficult to express the latter without being branded as anti-semitic when it is the actions of a state and not a religion to which I am referring

"Strong words and some home made missiles".. Un-be-fuckin-believable....

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.statista.com/chart/16516/israeli-palestinian-casualties-by-in-gaza-and-the-west-bank/

Exactly.

I've seen criticism of that link that starting in 2008 misses the last major set of killings by Hamas during the Second Intifada (2000-2005) although I believe the overall impression remains broadly the same.

Edit: from Wikipedia;

Casualties and losses
29 September 2000 – 1 January 2005:

• 644–773 Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians;
  

• 215–301 Israeli security force personnel killed by Palestinians

• 2,739–3,168 Palestinians killed by Israel's security forces;*

• 34 Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians

In the context of the recent attacks I'd suggest you may want to reconsider your phrasing.

Even in a brief post.

These numbers aren't nothing are they?

I agree Israel goes too far in its responses and there are clearly examples of behaviour by Israeli security services which are completely unacceptable. But it's also fair to say they are in a difficult position - there are significant numbers of people in Palestine who will attack Israel and seek to kill civilians. They can't do nothing. For those who paint Israel (the govt) as the clear villain, what exactly do you think they should do without putting their citizens at risk?

Clearly (to most outsiders at least) the end destination should be some form of the two state solution, but Israel will never disarm (it's a sovereign state and given the history of persecution against Jews, and the very real existence of many who don't accept its right to exist) that's probably reasonable. So Palestine won't entirely disarm either... How do you actually get to a peaceful settlement?

I just don't believe that "well if Israel stopped what it was doing to Palestine there would be no problem" is likely - even ignoring the real difficulties of getting Israelis to trust in it, where hundreds of years of history tells them that there will always be people who want to eradicate Jews altogether.

When you add the current reported figures of 1400 Israelis and 3000 Palestinians killed (though its figures announced by each countries authorities, rather than the UN or independent party)

8590 Palestinians, 1651 Israelis since 2008.
More Israelis were killed in one day than the whole of the second intifada.
Bit more than harmless...

For those who paint Israel (the govt) as the clear villain, what exactly do you think they should do without putting their citizens at risk?

Focus on defending it's own territory and not constantly allowing illegal settlements in Palestinian territoy?

Watching PMQ, nothing controversial.
-Hamas is a terrorist organisation
-Palestine people are not Hamas and need humanitarian aid
-Anti-Semitism and hate crime not to be tolerated

• Israel has suffered a terrorist attack and has a right to defend itself
  -The hospital explosion is to be investigated.