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[burningpet]

You know, I don't remember ever hearing of a protest against the treatment of Palestinian 'refugees'* in the countries surrounding Israel...

Obviously.

Did anyone hear about a big protest against the living conditions in the emirates?

[XXSockXX]

Did anyone hear about a big protest against the living conditions in the emirates?

Protests concerning the Middle East will involve Israel quite often. Obvious exceptions were protests during the Iraq war and protests against the war in Afghanistan or protests about Turkish internal affairs, ie the Kurdish-Turkish conflict. I don't think there were comparatively big protests against Assad or Gaddafi or Saddam. The mistreatment of workers in the Emirates is an issue you hear about a lot, but I haven't heard anything about protests.
The protests that involve lots of non-Muslim are usually the ones that paint the US (and Israel) as warmongerers while they have little to say about the Islamic regimes (or about Russia for that matter). I think a lot of these people genuinely don't mean to be anti-semitic or don't think they are, but they definitely have a very unhealthy one-sided obsession with Israel to say the least, that goes back to the 60s when the German far-left supported PLO (which they saw as a socialist revolutionary movement).
There is this jewish-german journalist, Henryk M. Broder, who writes a lot about this kind of left-wing antisemitism, mostly in German, but maybe you can find something in English too.

[palsch]

There is this jewish-german journalist, Henryk M. Broder, who writes a lot about this kind of left-wing antisemitism, mostly in German, but maybe you can find something in English too.

There are a number of British bloggers and a few journalists within the socialist movement who try to push back. Left Foot Forward (most recent example) is one while Harry's Place is probably the most infamous/controversial, with American (Gene) and Israeli (Marc Goldberg) contributors for a British focused blog. Notice they have a DDoS protection service you have to go through to get to the blog. I threw them in my RSS feed despite not often reading them just because the main site was down so often.

Back in '06 there was the Euston Manifesto, an attempt to;

"reaffirm the ideas that inspired the great rallying calls of the democratic revolutions of the eighteenth century: liberty, equality and solidarity; human rights; the pursuit of happiness ... But we are not zealots. For we embrace also the values of free enquiry, open dialogue and creative doubt, of care in judgement and a sense of the intractabilities of the world. We stand against all claims to a total — unquestionable or unquestioning — truth."

In particular;

"we must define ourselves against those for whom the entire progressive-democratic agenda has been subordinated to a blanket and simplistic 'anti-imperialism' and/or hostility to the current US administration."

This was best summed up by Alan Johnson (the socialist theorist, not the Labour politician, although arguably both are Marxists of a type) in the Guardian. He summed up the ideology they were opposing in a quote from a Stop the War Coalition leader;

"Socialists should unconditionally stand with the oppressed against the oppressor, even if the people who run the oppressed country are undemocratic and persecute minorities, like Saddam Hussein."

Note that STWC are a major player in the current British left, recently campaigning strongly against any intervention in Syria (including open support for Assad) and in support of Russia's actions in Crimea and Ukraine.

[Sheb]

Well, I don't exactly go around asking people what their great-grandfather did... I'd say mostly "less than two generations", but that's because the big wave of Arab immigration here was in the 60's and 70's, so most Muslims would be "less than two generations".

I went to 3 other middle-east related protests*, about Egypt, Syria and Egypt again, and they were heavily Arab-Muslim, but then they were also organized by Arab-Muslim groups.


*Which is also about the number of anti-Israeli-doing-bad-shit protest I went to, so hardly a good sample.

[burningpet]

About Egypt, as in, against mubarak? about Syria, as in, against Assad?

[Sheb]

Yes to both.

Edit: Well, actually, only one of the Egyptian protests was against Mubarak, the other was about the sentencing to death of around 500 Muslim Brotherhood members a while ago. I was there with a placard about the Al-Jazeera English journalists jailed by the junta.

[Leafsnail]

The Israeli army shelled a group of children on a beach in full view of a building full of journalists.  It appears that whoever fired the shell then adjusted their aim so that they could hit the survivors again, thus killing three more children.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/witness-gaza-shelling-first-hand-account

About Egypt, as in, against mubarak? about Syria, as in, against Assad?

This appears to be a deflection, and not a good one at that.  The government of my country does not provide unconditional diplomatic support to Bashar-al Assad.  If it did, I would be vigorously protesting that fact.  On the other hand, the government of my country does provide support for Israel in spite of their repeated war crimes.  There's also the fact that economic sanctions are already in place against the other countries you mentioned - the same is not true of Israel, and meaningful sanctions against them from, say, the EU could stop them from acting with such impunity.  So in other words you protest the things you actually have a meaningful chance of changing.

[Duuvian]

Spoiler: From that article (click to show/hide)

As the reporters left, Mohammad Abu Watfah was wheeled out of a lift after surgery to remove the shrapnel in his stomach. As relatives gathered not far from the Al-Deira hotel to bury the four dead boys, barely 90 minutes after the attack on the beach, the boys' uncle, Abdel Kareem Baker, 41, said: "It's a cold-blooded massacre. It's a shame they didn't identify them as kids with all of the advanced technology they claim they're using."

He's got a point in the last sentence. One wonders what kind of authorization to fire the Israeli army operates under or whether it was due to an uncaring soldier possibly upset at being there. With big guns come big responsibility.

[smjjames]

The Israeli army shelled a group of children on a beach in full view of a building full of journalists.  It appears that whoever fired the shell then adjusted their aim so that they could hit the survivors again, thus killing three more children.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/witness-gaza-shelling-first-hand-account

Geeze, either that is a horrible misidentification or mistargeting (wrong coords have resulted in friendly fire incidents) or could very well have been deliberate, given the hidden (or perhaps not hidden) rage that some Israelis apparently harbor (like those who killed the palestinian teen or beat up that guys cousin).

[Sheb]

Leafsnail, he was talking specifically about protests in Belgium here, not making a blanket defense of Israel. Well, not in that sentence anyway.


Also, the statement from the IDF: "Based on preliminary results, the target of this strike was Hamas terrorist operatives. The reported civilian casualties from this strike are a tragic outcome." make me want to puke.

[smjjames]

Leafsnail, he was talking specifically about protests in Belgium here, not making a blanket defense of Israel. Well, not in that sentence anyway.


Also, the statement from the IDF: "Based on preliminary results, the target of this strike was Hamas terrorist operatives. The reported civilian casualties from this strike are a tragic outcome." make me want to puke.

Are they even aware that there were no Hamas operatives there? Also, if a bunch of kids playing hide and seek fooled them into thinking that the kids were hamas operatives, then the whole IDF and israeli government needs to have their eyes checked.

[Sheb]

To be fair, that adult with them could have been in Hamas. After all Hamas is pretty much the government in Gaza, so I guess plenty of people are in it. That doesn't mean it's right to just kill all of them: applying the same reasoning Hamas could just kill any fighting-age Israeli, because they all serve(d) in the IDF.

Edit: A French TV crew was there and filmed. They don't actually show the shell hitting the boys, thanks god, but the shell was apparently fired from a Israeli ship offshore. Which make it even worse, as the artillery officer just needed some goddamn binoculars to see they were kids.

[Leafsnail]

If it was the wrong co-ordinates then it's a hell of a coincidence that their second shot happened to perfectly track the fleeing children.  Also if an individual soldier could make the call to fire those two consecutive shots then the chain of command in the IDF would be fucked up beyond belief.

I guess it's possible (although there's no evidence to suggest it) that the older man was from Hamas, but even if he was there's no way that justifies firing on kids twice.

[Sheb]

I guess it's possible (although there's no evidence to suggest it) that the older man was from Hamas, but even if he was there's no way that justifies firing on kids twice.

I totally agree with you, I was reacting to smjjames' "There was no Hamas operatives there".

Edit: This opinion of Israeli propaganda was interesting.

[Leafsnail]

That wasn't meant to be accusatory, sorry.

I am seriously wondering how you could make an accurate shot without using binoculars or some other form of imaging that would make the nature of their targets obvious.  If this wasn't deliberate then it was criminal negligence on a horrific scale.