About 100,000 turn out in London for pro-Palestine rally

Palestinians asking for a homeland. They are at home and have been invaded for over 70 years

- I don't think any right-thinking person has any sympathy for Hamas, and rightly so.
  However, Palestinians are not automatically members of Hamas. This would be like saying you're "done with" Americans and we should bomb every major American city because of the actions of the Proud Boys and other right-wing militias.
- Ah yes let’s „be done“ with a whole group of people, that’s normal rhetoric 👍
- Last drop in the bucket was how they dug up the water pipes that europe paid for, to make rockets out of them.
- Lost any sympathy with Palestinians
  In other words... your sympathies always lay with the white supremacist settler-colonialist project and not their victims.
- Did you start hating all Germans once Hitler got into power? If you didn't, that's mighty hypocritical of you. If you did, that's misguidedly racist as well.
- No
- Exactly this. People are oversimplify the whole story. In my opinion there's 2 camps of people who currently supports Palestine.
  They just don't know the historical background and don't know specifically -what- Hamas did the 7th, nor the huge support Hamas has in Palestine. (to clarify, A TERROR GROUP that has SUMMER CAMPS where they train kids to become terrorists).
  They support them because they enjoy jews getting killed.
  Concidering how the rich arab countries has reacted during their neighbour's times of need earlier: closing borders and not caring, group number 2 seems likely.
  Just picture that the Palestinians actually celebrate Hamas terrorist attack, they feel joy over the actions many of us now have seen on videos and they celebrate it even in the streets in Western countries.
  Imagine that 57% of Palestinians supports Hamas and 50% are against the idea of peace, 71% supports PIJ (Islamic Jihad), all while Biden won his election with 51%, Obama won with 53%, George Bush won in 1989 by 53%, last time any president got more votes than the support Hamas has in Palestine was in 1984, 39 years ago! Source about Palestinians support.
  That's how enormous the support of Hamas is, and some of ya'll are defending them. You need to watch the videos released of the atrocities Hamas committed, see the actions that you're defending, but I bet you don't even have the stomachs for it.
- Palestinians haven't been the victims here? The ones being evicted and shot by illegal "settlers" for decades?
- I agree, I'm surprised to see so much pro-Islam here.

The battle lines are being drawn in the court of public opinion. Now the question becomes how steadfast is the public support behind demanding a peaceful yet forceful resolution to this conflict and finally ending this apartheid regime.

Public perception outside Israel has affected a total of 0 policy decisions in the country
- Because they keep getting money from the US. The US tap has to be turned off.
- I just want my country to stop knob slobbing these fucking fascists.
How successful the court of public opinion has been in influencing the outcome of Israel conflict before?
- Very. Israel has been on several benders that were curtailed due to international opinion. Unfortunately it's never outrightly solved the issue.
- Pretty effective. It's backlash to Israel that has stopped Netanyahu from wiping palestine off the map.
- It was successful against South African Apartheid. There's a reason conservatives are trying to literally outlaw the BDS Israel movement. (Boycott, Divest, Sanction)
- Israel is a small country that relies on the implicit assumption that Western countries will defend it if a large invasion ever comes to be. If they didn't need some considerable international support, they would have ethnically cleansed the whole of Palestine already.
Peaceful yet forceful?
- They probably mean forceful as in strong, not nonviolent. Like the world needs to band up and tell Israel to cut their shit out like they did to South Africa.
- According to Amnesty International, the world’s leading human rights organisation: “Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control.” According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories: “The Israeli regime enacts in all the territory it controls an apartheid regime.”
- They've self described themselves as that in the past before term became criminalised in the early 2000s
  It's at least debatable and certainly not obvious.
- Israel is very very obviously an apartheid state.
- If you don’t want apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, then you want to rape festival-goers. Those are the only two choices!
Israel is not an apartheid regime. That is silly.
- Israel has full political and military control of Palestinian land. They control every aspect of their lives. Remember when Jewish people where placed into ghettos and they each had different insignia that would indicate where they were from and were they could travel and what freedoms they had? Israel does the same thing with palestinians.

I'm from Bristol. Haven't seen a single Israeli flag or show of support for Israel in this conflict, but I have seen loads of Palestinian flags waved around, and even witnessed a march last week.

I think public opinion has drastically changed in favour of Palestine.

Israel has the support of powerful governments the world over, it doesn't need the support of a hundred thousand marchers. This is why they get away with what they've done for decades.
- Same as for South Africa, basically. Segregation started in 1908. Formal apartheid in 1948. Full on boycotts with government support late 1980's, and 1990 the regime fell.
I'd say we're looking at a generalized propaganda failure here all across Europe and most of the world - ten years ago you were banned off any sizable English-language forum for calling Israel genocidal... that's simply not the case any longer.
- People have better access to information now.
- My experience is the opposite.
  I have a lot of Jewish friends and live in a place with a lot of Jewish people, and I see plenty who support Israel and have no problem being loud about their unequivocal support for Israels response. While the comments from my Jewish friends who don't support the response have been much more muted. Except for one girl who is pretty pissed that her suffering from the attacks is being used to justify what she calls is atrocities against the civilians of Gaza. My neighbor even told me over drinks this weekend that he keeps his mouth shut about it because he fears the retaliation (primarily social) from his Jewish community about the fact that he strongly disagrees with Israel's response.
I think a large part of the issue is that the settlements themselves are actually a reflection of Israel failing to develop vertically. Even without picking a side, even if we ignore the ridiculous hypocrisy of Israel for selling literal spyware tools like Pegasus for the Saudis and other dictators to use on their own citizens and commit murder, the reality is that Israel's current problem with terrorism is entirely of their own making, because they've funded settlements and wasted time and money when they've had more than 20 years since the Nakba, Fatah and had millions of dollars of US funding and done fuck all. Mate, you could be a hardcore Zionist and supporter of the state of Israel, and still think that they've done a shit job.
Bristol has a very left wing lean, I've seen the graffiti around. It's a vocal minority. Public opinion is mainly indifference but condemnation of both sides, maybe a bit on Israel's side right now. The way Hamas has conducted themselves I would argue has seriously damaged the perception of the Palestinian cause.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/10/16/b8bd3/1
- Fact that it's even that close when there's a lot of Western bias towards Israel and with how Muslims are often painted as terrorists by the media is a testament to how badly Israel fucked up.
Genuine question: How many, in term of proportion, if you can estimate, of the protesters are non-Muslim, or simply say white people/Chinese etc? I am saying this because they're a lot of Muslims living near cities, especially London, Manchester and Birmingham. Having many muslims protesting for the Palestinians is no brainer, as they share the same values. It's much more impactful if the protesters are consisted of many different religious demographics.

So how, exact, do you see the process of making Israel not exist proceeding? Genuinely, I'm curious. Do you really see absolutely no way for a state of Israel to exist in some fashion without the genocide of Palestinians? If not, then what exactly are you proposing?
- They want them to die, that’s why they just downvote lol
  It’s just another emotional moron commenting based on feels as they have zero fucking clue about the actual context, and they have no interest to learn either. Virtue signaling to make themselves feel better I guess
Edit: keep upvoting the comment that literally is calling for the end of Israel as they “don’t have the right to exist” using some shit strawman with Palestinian genocide as a fulcrum as if that’s what Israel is. The is gov does not define the people just like Hamas doesn’t define Palestine. Are you fucking kidding me?
Israel doesn’t have the right to exist? What kind of brain dead shit are you talking about??
Israel absolutely deserves to exist, they were placed there after they themselves were genocided. THAT is the problem, they were placed there and it’s fucked everything.
Israel absolutely deserves to exist just like Palestine.
If Israel’s very existance is dependent on the genocide of Palestinians, and it is, then it doesn’t deserve to exist. Rights are for people, not countries so kindly stop saying that “Israel has a right to exist”. It doesn’t, Palestinians have a right to exist without being killed and ethnically cleansed from their native lands.
Jesus fucking Christ, how are you this fucking stupid? Israel’s existence is not dependent on the genocide of Palestinians, that’s just a bullshit strawman you just pulled out of your ass so you could knock it down. Rights are indeed for people but guess what, when people say Israel deserves to exist they’re talking about the Israeli people. Those people deserve to not be killed or ethnically purged from their homes as well, the difference is the Israel never should have been placed there. But guess what they were. So what do the Israeli citizens do? If we ask you, I guess your stance is go fuck themselves because of what the Israeli gov has done over the many years. Do you not see how reductive and fucked that is?
Personally, I have always been a free Palestine supporter and a strong hater of Israeli gov but the mindless emotional backlash like the one in your comment only enables more hate and bullshit. Israel deserves to exist they just don’t deserve to exist on other people’s lands. That’s a big fucking difference to the emotional bullshit you vomited out. When you say “it (Israel) doesn’t (have the right to exist)”, it sounds quite similar to the Hamas goal of the extermination of Israel. Hamas doesn’t represent the Palestinian people, yet here you are with this bullshit. No, I’m not saying if you don’t suck netanyahoo’s dick you’re an antisemite, I’m saying if you seriously can’t see that there are an insane number of innocents on each side of this conflict, then you are lost and unreasonable.
- Israel absolutely deserves to exist just like Palestine. Jesus fucking Christ
  Israel, the Jewish state, doesn't have the right to exist. That doesn't mean the Jews should be pushed into the sea or whatever, but there's absolutely no reason a country that goes "We're the Jewish homeland. Everyone else can eat shit" needs to exist. This is the 21st century, we should oppose the creation of explicit ethnostates.
- Aha and why does Israel deserve to exist exactly? I couldn’t care less if every single country in the world disappeared tomorrow. Again, rights are for people, not countries and if your statehood relies on genocide and ethnic cleansing, it needs to go. Call me sympathetic to Hamas talking points all you want. I certainly don’t support their ideology but at the end of the day, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter and armed struggle against an occupying force is legal under international law. Hamas isn’t even recognized as a terrorist organization by the UN. Hamas could be flowerpower hippies and they’d still be called “terrorists” by Israel and its allies. Really shows how meaningless that word has become.
Removed. I'll try to make this as simple to understand as possible... You can't advocate against the genocide of a people by promoting the genocide of another people. I don't care if the argument is "Palestinians need to die so Israel can exist." Or "Israel needs to die so Palestinians can exist." Neither view is acceptable.
- Israel is not a people. It’s a genocidal fascist neocolony. Palestine needs to be decolonized. I’m not advocating for the genocide of French people when I’m saying that Algeria needs to be free. The same applies to Palestine.

- They live in a country where they are abble to live a life in a more open and accepted way and can't understand that the people they are standing up would beat them, stone them or kill them without hesitation.
- Does pro-"the defense of the innocent" and pro-human rights make more sense to you.
- Why?
  Do you also think the same about Ukraine, which is a pretty himophobic place?
- Yeah I don't even know but hey I guess it looks like a lot of people don't like Benji much any more
- A lot of people hate that the Hamas atrocities have been weaponized by Netanyahu and he is basically doing this war to escape scrutiny in Israel.
to be fair, if you wave an LGBTQ flag at any protest on TERF island and you'll probably get harrassed
Since many of us left Reddit without any desire to give them traffic, could you please put a warning with your link?
- Tbh I feel like this is a silly request.
- I think the fact that it starts with https://www.reddit.com is probably enough of a warning.
Seems like they're trying to shoehorn their cause into another.

Nice job Londoners.

Fuck Israel.

Well, the Israeli government, anyway.
- I mean, how is the democracy in Israel?
  I hear the media is somewhat free there
  Israelis should've taken some action the past years
Aka "I don't care who vowed to do terrorism, fuck those who dare to respond to it"
- Which side are you referring to?

Good thing no one cares about your opinion then.
- Looks like you care enough to post a comment 😂
You probably don't understand empathy borne out of being oppressed. Liberal western person has had their ancestors fight and die for the liberalism they enjoy in the present.

LOL that any brit has the guts to be out there protesting when literally they are one of the founding pillars of the conflict would be funny if it wasn't so fucked.

@rivermonster
LOL that any brit has the guts to be out there protesting when literally they are one of the founding pillars of the conflict
Wait, are you saying that people should never protest against something their country is doing/was involved in?
- Yes.
You cannot blame the normal civilians for these particular actions. I don’t even think, some of them were even born yet.
- The British clusterfuck here dates back to the first world war. No one remotely involved is alive now.
- And there's definitely no way to learn your country's history. The UK who has even more crimes against humanity and war crimes under its belt than even the US. And the US NUKED civilian population intentionally. Even with that the UK should shut the fuck up about this specific issue.
  But then again, most people weighing in on the conflict don't know any of its history.
  They don't know that 2 state was about to happen when Arafat walked away.
  They don't know how Israel pulled completely out of the west Bank and Gaza, and in exchange for autonomy, their armed security forces used their weapons to attack Israelis.
  They don't know even the basic modern history of the region like the Yom Kippur war. Could you imagine what the response would be if Israel attacked Mecca during Ramadan? LOL, bc that's what the Arab countries did.
  They don't know there were at one point Palestian Jews....
  The list of ignorant shir and misinformation being slung around here is insane.
  There are NO good guys and bad guys in this conflict. It is just an endless parade of war crimes by everyone involved.
  I readily condemn Israel's long history of crimes (including many and current war crimes against the civilians in Gaza). Because I know Israel has blood on its hands.
  But these Anti-Israel or Pro-terrorism nutters (your choice) can not even acknowledge the horrible war crimes and terrorist acts that triggered this latest escalation. Instead, they make empty excuses and whatabout away the most horrific intentional attack on civilians that we've seen in a long time. It's tribalism rather than care about right and wrong. There's a reason the Aussies were shouting "Gas the Jews" at their rally.
  I'll happily soak up all the downvotes in the world, calling bullshit on the armchair experts with five minutes of research from a propaganda site with an agenda--any day. Meanwhile, these uninformed or intellectually disingenuous shills, or their closest bedfellows the racist anti-semites make excuses for the horrible laundry list of crimes committed by the elected representatives of Gaza.
  All the while, even if the pro-terrorists aren't anti-semites they are happily in bed and cheering side by side with them over a common cause. And the comfort with which they do is beyond disturbing.
- Nah love you bro

Hardly surprised, the tube outlet right under parliament had pro palestinian posters last I was there

Looked to be a lot more than 100k to me

British media likes to undersell any and all protests, they typically take their photos at the end when there's a much lower number of people and then knock at least half off the number of people who attended. Oh and if one person brings a joke flag/banner then you better believe pictures of that from different angles will be all over the place rather than any pictures of actual protestors.
- I wish I could find that one photo of about 30 photographers crowded around the one guy with a bloody nose at a 100,000 person protest, but google is failing me
  Pretty sure it was him, but a photo from further back so you could see way more photographers. Literally every photo from the protests that day had this guy in.
- BBC is state run, of course they're going to slant things in favor of the establishment
300,000 apparently

https://www.theonion.com/dying-gazans-criticized-for-not-using-last-words-to-con-1850925657
No mention of the genocidal act or the group that started this all.
It may surprise you to learn that history did not begin on October 7th
Pretty sure the Israelites taking over the grounds of Palestine happened before HAMAS ever existed.
Palestinians in Gaza have been mistreated for over a decade, they can only enter Israel during the day and have to come back by nightfall. Israel closed the border between Gaza and Egypt. People have been trapped in Gaza and treated like cattle for so long. They have been denied healthcare and basic needs. And the moment a few palestinians revolt against the oppression (even though killings by hamas are horrible), the world denounces palestine as a whole? Have you read about what Israel has been doing for the past decade or so? I think that in it's core, it's a fight for freedom. Hamas' approach is absolutely terrifying, but palestinians can't just stand and watch. How can you make sure your opinions reach the government when they don't want to listen to you? That's the entire point of religious conflicts, Israeli government hates palestinians for just existing. And you tell me that palestinians are supposed to sympathise with the killings in Israel, when Israel has done (and continues to do) atrocities on their people ten times as worse?
Was it horrible for british colonies to fight against the british empire? What would you think the narrative would be if Britain had a colony right now which was trying to revolt? What about everything that the US has done to destroy economies in the middle east, just to line the pockets of the rich? How is this not obvious?
Hamas is nothing in comparison to Israels crimes against the Palestinians.

What is the point of these protests?

The most charitable view:
To show western governments that the population doesn't just blindly side with the Israeli government. A major difference between the two sides who are committing heinous acts, is that one side is a government committing genocide, and the other is a military organization (not the government) which was made in response to being forcibly expelled from their land by that government.
Neither side should be killing innocent civilians, but we should not be collectively taking Israel's side, like is traditionally done.
The least charitable view:
Because people want to get away with yelling Nazi-shit in public.
To say that Israelis aren't the only people needing protection.
Mostly to vent out anti-Semitic frustration in a way that is politically viable
- Don't confuse criticism of the Israeli government with anti-semitism. Otherwise you're just saying "Israel can do no wrong, even if they're doing war crimes."
- Well if that isn't the most outlandish illogical leap I've seen in a while...

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The shipment of 20 trucks bringing medical supplies offered limited relief to Gaza’s 2.3 million population, under fire and with barely anything to eat or drink.

The home secretary, Suella Braverman, has previously labelled the slogan antisemitic and claimed that it is “widely understood” to call for the destruction of Israel.

A small group of protesters held a separate demonstration in central London on Saturday in which a large banner read, “Muslim armies, rescue the people of Palestine.”

The Met said it was deploying 1,000 officers to police the demonstration, as well as mounting extra patrols around synagogues and places of worship following a 1,350% increase in hate crimes against Jewish people and a 140% rise in Islamophobic incidents.

The Met said there had been “pockets of disorder and some instances of hate speech” in the series of vigils, protests and public gatherings, but that most had “been lawful and taken place without incident”.

In Australia, thousands marched through central Sydney after police gave the event the green light, and rallies were also held in Perth, Hobart and Brisbane.