with the terrible history Jews have, why is Israel behaving like this?

(1000 Posts)
ssd Sun 20-Jul-14 23:22:55

I would have thought they would be showing more compassion for a repressed minority but the opposite is happening

and Netanyahu saying they told the Palestinians to leave because they were going to be fired on...where the bloody hell would they go to?? IF THEY COULD GO AT ALL

ShineSmile Sun 20-Jul-14 23:28:50

I'm completely with you on this!

I just can't understand, after every thing they have been through with the holocoast, how can they treat people the way they were treated? Surely you would have more sympathy?!

lookoveryourshouldernow Sun 20-Jul-14 23:29:46

..me too - I thought that - but thought that I didn't understand the situation....

MrsMaturin Sun 20-Jul-14 23:32:34

I don't agree with the Israeli position but their view is that they are defending themselves - and it's exactly because of their history that they need to do that.

noblegiraffe Sun 20-Jul-14 23:32:56

Israel think that they are the repressed minority.

Also, Zionism.

JohnFarleysRuskin Sun 20-Jul-14 23:34:38

Really? You don't think when a group of people have already tried/nearly succeeded to annihilate you, you don't get a bit edgy when another group vows to do the same?

Why are the Syrians behaving like this? Why are the Russians behaving like this? Why are the iranians....So many nations behaving badly, but only on one nation is the expectation they behave 'better' than everyone else.

Patrickstarisabadbellend Sun 20-Jul-14 23:35:41

The world is full of arseholes.

Alisvolatpropiis Sun 20-Jul-14 23:36:34

Israel was created by white men drawing lines on a map with zero consideration for the people living in the region at the time or what life would be like for people of the newly created Israel.

As a result, since it's creation Israel has existed with real and perceived hostility from the entire Middle East. Unrelentingly so. As a result the state has become highly militarised - conscription for both young men and women still exists there.

I don't for a second condone their actions with regard to the Palestinians, I strongly disagree and don't fully understand why the rest of the world is sitting back and just letting it happen.

hiddenhome Sun 20-Jul-14 23:37:32

Surrounding countries want to wipe them off the face of the earth. If your neighbours were behaving like that towards you and throwing grenades over your garden fence, you'd be pretty pissed off, paranoid, hostile and would want to retaliate with some force after years of having this happen.

ShineSmile Sun 20-Jul-14 23:42:04

If we go back to 1940s to when this all started, after what they had been through, how could they steal other people's home and land?

VampireSquid Sun 20-Jul-14 23:42:24

Everyone around them wants them to die. I think it's fairly reasonable to be on edge. NO surrounding countries are helping Palestine. They sit back and watch people die. Israel SHOULD be able to respond BUT it is so disproportionate it is horrifying. I'm from a Muslim (Syrian) family, although I'm not Muslim, married to DH who's from a Jewish family, I've had loads of 'funny' comments hmm Israel is a democratic country surrounded by non democratic countries and I can't see a way to have peace. Palestine (or rather, the leaders) clearly don't judging by the way they go back or stop peace treaties, neither does Netanyahu. They both seem to want to obliterate each other...never mind the people being bombed and killed on their own sides, let alone the other side.

HauntedNoddyCar Sun 20-Jul-14 23:45:06

Fear. And because they have the tacit backing of the US.

bolshieoldcow Sun 20-Jul-14 23:45:21

OK, I'll bite…

Gaza is governed by Hamas, whose charter states that they do not and will never recognise, or make peace with, the state of Israel. Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel, even when the Israelis stopped firing - it's only thanks to the Israeli defences that the deaths on their side have not been as high as the Palestinian deaths. For example a rocket was fired into a nursery school in Ashdod, but the children got to the shelters in time. You say 'after everything the Jews have been through' - and that does, i think, influence matters. They don't want to be wiped off the map, so this time they're fighting back to protect their citizens. Israel is a tiny country surrounded by countries that just don't like it.

I do not agree with how the Palestinians are treated, but I can't accept the destruction of the Jewish state.

I also think there is another question to be asked about why people get very angry about Israel when rockets are fired daily from Gaza, there are Palestinians being starved in camps in Syria, not to mention the civil war in Syria, the persecution of Christians in Iraq and the Egyptian civil rights suppressions all in the past six months…

Loveneverfails Sun 20-Jul-14 23:45:22

They are defending the country they want to keep their own.

gamescompendium Sun 20-Jul-14 23:46:24

Don't you think that after we Europeans royally fucked up our nice 'tolerant' society and killed vast numbers of Jews several times over (Jews were welcome in Moorish Spain then chucked out, they then were tolerated for centuries in Eastern Europe until the Nazis decided to try and destroy them) we can't really comment on what happens next. We shoved the last few remaining Jews into a troublesome part of the Empire and now wonder why there is trouble in that part of the world. And we wash our hands of it and pretend we are better than them all?

Israel is the size of Wales. They are surrounded by enemies who want to destroy them. The only way they can survive is to warmonger themselves (and have friends in powerful places). I don't know what is the best thing for them to do, I'm not sure peace in that region of the world is going to happen any time soon. It's all pretty awful and we in the West don't have clean hands.

mrsleomcgary Sun 20-Jul-14 23:48:56

I don't fully understand this and i'm usually pretty good with politics (I'm the one my friends ask when they're not confused about politics!) but with the middle east i'm totally clueless. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't there a whole 'thing' between Jews and Muslims that goes back thousands of years?

Also agree with the pp who said Israel perceive themselves as persecuted here, there's a documentary that came out a few years ago,not sure of the name (zion maybe?) that followed a group of Israeli teenagers on a trip to one of the nazi concentration camps. Every teenager goes on one of these trips, having been told from birth really that the world wants them dead for being jews. They go on these trips accompanied by mossad agents for protection and some of them were genuinely terrified for their lives. There was one girl, I can't remember exactly what happened but an elderly German man tried to talk to her, she thought he was threatening her and started abusing him. He was talking German, she Hebrew (I assume) and all he did was comment on the weather.

I'm not saying anti-semitisim is gone and I can understand why Israel feel the way they do after but god sometimes they don't do themselves any favours either. I honestly think we'll still be having this conversation in 20 years from now.

Meglet Sun 20-Jul-14 23:49:29

I don't get it either. It's such a mess.

Alisvolatpropiis Sun 20-Jul-14 23:50:03

I think people are getting angry at Israel because they took more land than was given to them. They now occupy land, by force that Palestinians lived in, by right because it was their land.

Of course Israel should be able to defend itself, but not like this.

Also people are talking about Israel because this is a thread about what is happening between Israel and Palestine, not what is happening in Syria. I have opinions on that conflict too but they're not relevant to the op's question.

trufflesnout Sun 20-Jul-14 23:50:35

It is way, way more complicated than the simplistic "Israel are the bad guys" that is frequently portrayed.

mrsleomcgary Sun 20-Jul-14 23:51:14

My use of the word 'thing' sound horribly flippant above and I apologise for trivialising.

trufflesnout Sun 20-Jul-14 23:51:34

They are relevant by extension though, Ali, since Syria are often considered a bigger enemy to Israel than Palestine.

babbas Sun 20-Jul-14 23:51:41

Defending themselves against women, babies and kids playing on a beach?

I am Jewish and appalled at the genocide Israel is committing in full glare of the world.
Moved to tears by this letter written by a Dr Who has travelled to Gaza to help: nationalreport.net/israel-begins-construction-concentration-camps-outside-gaza/

VampireSquid Sun 20-Jul-14 23:52:11

I agree truffle it is so mixed up and so messed up. Both sides are wrong, countries all around them are doing nothing to help either. How hard is it for people to just be nice to each other?

Alisvolatpropiis Sun 20-Jul-14 23:53:36


Yes, but it isn't what the op is asking. Nor is it Syria which is being shelled by Israel, for all it's "being the bigger enemy".

trufflesnout Sun 20-Jul-14 23:55:55

Fair enough Ali, just trying to offer an explanation for why people were bringing up Syria

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