different views in Jewish community on Israel's actions in Gaza

Following on from my previous blog post (here), below are a collection of opinions about the present Gaza conflict that don't conform to how opinion is often portrayed.


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/23/british-jews-gaza-conflict-jewish-community

http://jfjfp.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anna-joseph/may-we-talk-about-this-ye_b_5586261.html

I was very concerned to hear that in a number of cases, those speaking out against Israel's actions in Palestine have come in for a backlash.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2014/08/11/pupil-divides-jewish-opinion
http://www.jta.org/2014/08/01/news-opinion/world/flemish-jews-slam-belgian-prime-ministers-criticism-of-israel
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Yes-all-criticism-of-Israel-is-anti-Semitic
http://www.macleans.ca/authors/emma-teitel/why-jews-dont-dare-criticize-israel/

Gaza - Muslim Council of Britain article on Jewish News website

It's very easy to get sucked into thinking that opinion on the situation in Gaza is divided between Muslims on one side supporting the Palestinians against Israel and the Jews on the other supporting Israel against the Palestinians. In recent weeks I have been a bit concerned that I have heard little in the media about what Muslims and Jews here in the UK think about the situation. And politicians here, rightly or wrongly have been a little bit reluctant to voice views, maybe due to fear of "upsetting" community opinion on either side.

The following is an article published on the Jewish News website where Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain says that anti-Semitism is unjustified and that Jews living here in the UK should not be made scapegoats for the actions of the Israeli Government.

http://www.jewishnews.co.uk/opinion-supporting-gaza-can-never-excuse-anti-semitism/


(I thought that Israel was a secular state but I do wonder how much influence on policy and opinion and action the more right wing, more orthodox side of the Jewish religious organisation has, especially on the settlement building and using what can be perfectly legitimate criticism of a state's actions into a viewpoint that the person(s) making the criticism is being anti-Semitic?)

Elsewhere on the site the Chairman of the UJS National Council talks about the fine line between anti-Israel and anti-Jew.
http://www.jewishnews.co.uk/everyday-antisemitism-project/

There are of course plenty of websites and articles on either side that give a more biased view of things,  but dialogue does happen,(example here)  and should be more public in order to head off what is an increasingly polarised viewpoint in the media and in society in general.

An introduction

This blog was created as I felt the need to bring together and publish opinions that may contradict what the media and many others see as the views of a whole community, religion or community. So often we see reporting that gives the impression that "all" people of a certain community, religion, gender and so on think in a certain way, have a certain view, that the actions of some among them represents the widespread view. I am as guilty of thinking this as anyone.

It is often the case that the views represented are made by those with the loudest voices within the community, or selected to fit with a chosen viewpoint already decided by the media. This happens in the UK, but is at it's most severe where countries or factions control the media viewpoint, people are told what the government or faction want them to know.

The final aim is to give my own views and comments, the blog's title "There must be another way to.." is deliberately designed to make people stop and think about the alternatives to the "authorised" or "traditional" or "accepted" or "mainstream".

This blog does not represent the views of any political party, factional viewpoint, religious stance etc etc. and views and opinions represented here are either my own or links to different viewpoints on the internet.