On October 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel in the Gaza Strip (known as “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”). Subsequently, Israel also entered a state of emergency and war under the declaration of Prime Minister Netanyahu. The IDF updated Launched “Operation Iron Sword” and vowed to retaliate against “terrorists” in Gaza. This is not a large-scale conflict that has only occurred between Israel and Palestine in recent years: under Israel’s apartheid policy of continuing to expand Jewish settlements and seize Palestinian land, the two parties have almost no chance of peaceful coexistence. However, the raid launched by Hamas still alarmed the international community and public opinion due to the large number of casualties it caused to civilians. On social networks in mainland China, with the progress of the actions of Hamas and Israel and the repeated pull caused by hot events, many social media users, including Weibo, suddenly flooded into public opinion on the “Palestinian-Israeli conflict” The battlefield made this war once again like the Russia-Ukraine war, becoming another mirror reflecting the ecology of domestic public opinion.
Before Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated that Israel’s recent actions had gone “beyond self-defense,” Chinese officials still maintained a neutral stance on the situation. In addition, China actually maintained good relations with both Israel and Palestine at different levels. This also This made public opinion once more diverse. After Hamas attacked the Rem Music Festival, causing civilian casualties, the official Weibo of the Israeli Embassy in China also quickly announced the emergency to Weibo netizens. Noa Argamani’s “Chinese-Israeli” identity is trying to win the support of Chinese netizens in public opinion. This move, combined with the statement “Hamas = ISIS”, also caused many Chinese netizens to leave messages of sympathy and support for Israel. On the one hand, what Hamas did was a terrorist attack with solid evidence. Out of the most basic moral concepts, Condemning Hamas is a perfectly normal move; on the other hand, compared with the rationalization of many Chinese netizens for Russia’s aggressive behavior after the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war, ordinary people do not know much about the Palestinian and Israeli sides, which led to the attack. In the short period of time since then, the phenomenon of “standing in line” has not been significant.
Israel’s Operation Iron Sword is advancing step by step. On the 13th, the Israeli army notified the United Nations that they would issue an “evacuation order” requiring the 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza to move to the south of the area within 24 hours to avoid military strikes. On the 18th, an explosion occurred in a hospital in Gaza, killing more than 500 people, most of whom were civilians, patients, and people taking refuge in the hospital. The Israel Defense Forces released an audio recording claiming it was the work of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but Palestinian officials said it was caused by Israeli air strikes. Saudi Arabia later followed suit and accused Israel of attacking hospitals that caused civilian casualties. With the arrival of Israel’s counterattack, and the historical grievances between Hamas/Palestine and Israel continue to be brought into the field of public opinion, the discussion of this conflict on the Chinese Internet has gradually changed, and the unfamiliar Israel and Palestine continue to become more specific. While the “true face” of Palestine and Israel seems to have become clear, it is also filled with the imagination of the strange other on the Chinese Internet. Behind this imagination is also full of people’s projection of self-positioning through the Palestinian-Israeli issue. Here, we can see how “anti-Semitism” and “anti-imperialism” come together, and we can also see the misalignment between national interests and nationalism.
On October 16, 2023, an Israeli soldier was killed during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the funeral in Jerusalem, relatives and friends expressed their pain. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images
The position of Jews in the mainstream public opinion field in Simplified Chinese
In 2019, when Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, spoke at the United Nations, he held up a Bible and claimed that the “land contract” recorded the Israelis’ ownership of the land for thousands of years, sparking controversy. Shaped by mainstream Western ideology, the Jewish identity and its victim image have become a natural political correctness after experiencing large-scale anti-Semitism, especially the Nazi Holocaust, and this victim image It also brought a lot of convenience to Israel’s restoration and its rule after the war. But now that the Gaza-Israel conflict is resurrecting, the Chinese people do not need to bear the “guilt” of Europe and the United States for the Jews, and they are focusing more on Israel’s long-term oppressive rule of the Palestinians.
The copyright of this published content belongs to Duan Media or related units. Please do not reprint or copy without authorization from the editorial department of Duan Media, otherwise it will be an infringement.
#AntiAmerican #antiSemitic #antiMuslim #imagination #selfprojection #PalestinianIsraeli #conflict #public #opinion #field #Simplified #Chinese #Chinese #Initium #Media
2023-10-18 23:00:27
