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Thlom posted:The West Bank and Gaza exists as political and geographic entities because Israel is a jewish ethnostate and they can't allow a one-state solution in which Palestinians exist in the state on the same terms as jews as that would mean Israel would cease to be a jewish ethnostate tomorrow. They can tolerate a few palestinians in east Jerusalem as long as they are only a minority. I just don't understand the attitude towards wanting an ethnostate, especially when the land use to have a lot of muslims, jews, and christians all living together. The whole idea comes across as evil and horrible, and history has consistently shown that it is and leads to horrifying human rights abuses, and well *motions at all of Israel and its history* Its just weird to me that Israel wants what it wants at the cost of its reputation and too much blood on its hands.
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Dec 4, 2023 00:38
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I said come in! posted:I just don't understand the attitude towards wanting an ethnostate, especially when the land use to have a lot of muslims, jews, and christians all living together. The whole idea comes across as evil and horrible, and history has consistently shown that it is and leads to horrifying human rights abuses, and well *motions at all of Israel and its history* The idea here is basically that if there is no Israel then there's nowhere that Jews can be truly safe. Because the potential for mostly-non-Jewish countries to form violent anti-Jewish movements will never go away, and liberal democracies can't prevent themselves from being ignored or even overthrown by those movements once they've accumulated enough popular support. Yes, today it looks like American Jews enjoy freedom and prosperity beyond the wildest dreams of any 19th/early 20th century shtetl dweller, but it COULD go fascist, and then there's nothing that the Jewish 2% could do to protect themselves from the non-Jewish 98% except fleeing to another country where the same thing could happen. Therefore there has to be one country where it's impossible for a pogrom to happen, because the people who live there are mostly Jewish. It really can't be underlined enough that a lot of the basis of modern Zionism is a belief that liberal democracy is a utopian fantasy and can't actually protect minority citizens. I think there are really only two credible responses to this line of thought: 1. Nope, that's stupid, today's liberal West could never become unsafe for Jewish people, they're too enlightened and their civil society is too reinforced against fascism. Very reassuring but not very true. 2. Yes, it's true that any multicultural society is at risk of backsliding into bigotry and becoming dangerous for any minority group, including Jews, but it's grotesque to commit crimes against humanity in order to secure one particulsr.commujity from this problem. The only just response is to do everything we can to keep our society from declining in that way, by building a fair economy and tolerant culture. This is true but it's not very reassuring to say "yes it's theoretically possible that the country goes full Nazi, we just have to do our best to prevent that." There are other reasons as well - for example an idea that Jews and Jewish culture were damaged by the fact that there was no country where most people were Jewish and therefore most people in every industry were Jewish. A lot of early Zionist propaganda focused on characters like the Jewish farmer and the Jewish war hero, who didn't exist in the diaspora but could exist in Israel. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 00:44
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Civilized Fishbot posted:The idea here is basically that if there is no Israel then there's nowhere that Jews can be truly safe. Because the potential for mostly-non-Jewish countries to form violent anti-Jewish movements will never go away, and liberal democracies can't prevent themselves from being ignored or even overthrown by those movements once they've accumulated enough popular support. But doesn't that seem like living in a constant state of anxiety and fear? And if this is so important, then why all this boot on the neck to the rest of the population? Doesn't that then make it all a self-fulfilling prophecy? Who's going to like anyone who treats them that way? I guess I just don't agree on the religious thing. I wouldn't with any religion, I think it's isolationist and weird and unhealthy, creating a kind of provincial and insular way of viewing the world : a constant US vs THEM. There's no kind of intermingling or interest in diversifying, none that I have seen. I even think the idea itself is xenophobic, which I also find strange because it's the oldest Abrahamic religion, and there are Jews living in so many places within relative safety, and if they were taken away from their homes, wouldn't they miss the actual places they made as home in other places? I guess I'm just puzzled by the whole thing, forgive me for not really understanding. It just seems so much of this is based on a concept and not on an actual sense of belonging.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:05
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MadSparkle posted:But doesn't that seem like living in a constant state of anxiety and fear? You must not be Jewish lol. For real, yes, but there's no realistic response to the endless list of progroms culminating in the Holocaust which doesn't involve anxiety and fear. Anxiety and fear is the human reaction to sincerely contemplating what the Holocaust and other genocides reveal about the potential for normal countries to become viciously dangerous toward minority communities. The question is whether that anxiety and fear is channelled into an attempt to spread and reinforce the liberal (or leftist) ideas and legal principles that prevent the state from ignoring the safety of minorities, or whether it's channelled into an attempt to build one country where one specific ethnic cohort is protected from this danger. quote:And if this is so important, then why all this boot on the neck to the rest of the population? Doesn't that then make it all a self-fulfilling prophecy? Who's going to like anyone who treats them that way? Yes the Israeli solution isn't "stop antisemitism" which is stipulated as impossible. It's "create a state which can't be taken over by antisemites from within or destroyed by antisemites from outside." They are very aware that all violence by the Israeli state exacerbates antisemitism in Palestine and across the world - they don't care because they believe that it's the state's power and duty to provide security even if literally every non-Jew suddenly becomes violently anti-Jewish. quote:I guess I just don't agree on the religious thing. I wouldn't with any religion, I think it's isolationist and weird and unhealthy, creating a kind of provincial and insular way of viewing the world : a constant US vs THEM. There's no kind of intermingling or interest in diversifying, none that I have seen. I'm not sure what you mean by "the religious thing." I think an important idea to understand here is that Zionism was founded as a national, not religious, project. The earliest Zionists were almost completely secular, generally viewed religion as stupid superstition, and expected its importance in their new country to be minimal. One of the most interesting questions in the history of Israel is why they were so completely wrong in their anticipations here. Who/what exactly are you saying exhibits a "provincial and insular way of viewing the world" and what are their obligations in terms of "intermingling or interest in diversifying"? quote:, and there are Jews living in so many places within relative safety, and if they were taken away from their homes, wouldn't they miss the actual places they made as home in other places? If "relative safety" were actual safety then you wouldn't say "relative", right? Yes most of them miss those places terribly, but they also want to be safe from violent mobs - actually safe, not relatively safe, because "relatively safe" means "safe until danger." A defining theme in Jewish history is hundreds of forced expulsions and desperate flights from violent mobs. The idea of Zionism is "fine, we move one last time, and then we're safe here forever." The answer from Jews who don't move to Israel is, "meh, I feel safe enough/safer here, plus I'm culturally/economically attached to this place. And maybe "woah, if there's a danger of this place going full Nazi, that's something I want to help fix, not flee from." Or just "yes you are right but I can't bear to participate in the ongoing destruction of Palestinian people and their culture." MadSparkle posted:I guess I'm just puzzled by the whole thing, forgive me for not really understanding. It just seems so much of this is based on a concept and not on an actual sense of belonging. You're probably just overthinking it. The idea here is very simple. "Because antisemitism is irrevocably popular, country with a minority Jewish population has some possibility of subordinating or even exterminating that population. Therefore Jews are only truly safe in a country where they are not a minority. No such country exists so we must build one, by any means necessary." It should go without saying but I disagree with this logic. I think it basically is true that no country is ever totally secure from sliding into fascism given the right sequence of disasters, but "we must build one by any means necessary" isn't s sufficient solution to the problem unless you essentalize the problem as particular to Jews. But no, there are thousands of minority communities that are imperiled by that reality, and they can't all have militarily dominant ethnostates, so we need another solution. The solution is "communism but with a liberal attitude toward culture and religion." Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 01:34
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MadSparkle posted:I guess I'm just puzzled by the whole thing, forgive me for not really understanding. It just seems so much of this is based on a concept and not on an actual sense of belonging. My family has lived in the US for 130 years, which is probably fairly typical. We also lost every family member who didn't make it out of Europe prior to WWII, which is also probably fairly typical. When pogroms have played out over and over, the idea of a having one country where your neighbors won't suddenly turn on you is a seductive one. There are a lot of Jews, even secular ones, who keep one eye on the door. I would go to a lot of places much sooner than I'd ever think of Israel, but I didn't live through a pogrom.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:46
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Is Chernowitz not required reading anymore? It helped me in middle/high school to contextualize anti semitism and how it would be an insidious thing that spreads like wildfire in a familiar setting. At the same time, I can also see what's going on right now and also look back in history and say that settler colonialism aiming for an ethno nationalist state inevitably leads to crimes against humanity.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:53
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MadSparkle posted:But doesn't that seem like living in a constant state of anxiety and fear? And if this is so important, then why all this boot on the neck to the rest of the population? Doesn't that then make it all a self-fulfilling prophecy? Who's going to like anyone who treats them that way? It doesn't really have all that much to do with religion. It's classic nationalism, with a little bit of religious flavor added. The idea is that living as a minority in another state is fundamentally bad, both because it subjects them to a high risk of oppression and marginalization (realistic) and because it deprives them of the ability to unleash the full greatness of their national spirit and cultural heritage (sounds ridiculous, but it's a fairly common thread in nationalist narratives - the idea that the people will become stronger and better with their own ethnostate). For some people, "Never Again" means "no one should ever face pogroms and massacres due to their ethnic or cultural identity". For others, "Never Again" means "the Jewish people specifically should never again face pogroms and massacres, and they should do whatever it takes to avoid that, even if it means they have to do pogroms and massacres to other people". That's one problem with nationalism - it's fundamentally concerned only with the interests of one group, not with justice and fairness for everyone as a whole. "No kind of intermingling or interest in diversifying" sounds about right. After all, the Jewish people wouldn't have been able to more or less maintain their cultural identity through two millennia of being minorities if they didn't have a strong resistance to assimilation.
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Dec 4, 2023 02:06
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Jewish people were specifically barred from assimilation due to their religion, and the various weird clothing laws instituted throughout both Christendom and the Islamic world ensured that they wouldn't be mistaken for anyone else. I guess "refusing to denounce Judaism" could be considered to be refusal to assimilate but I wouldn't blame it on them.
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Dec 4, 2023 02:12
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Civilized Fishbot posted:You must not be Jewish lol. For real, yes, but there's no realistic response to the endless list of progroms culminating in the Holocaust which doesn't involve anxiety and fear. Anxiety and fear is the human reaction to sincerely contemplating what the Holocaust and other genocides reveal about the potential for normal countries to become viciously dangerous toward minority communities. I'm just not a religious person which is what I meant about the "religious thing" - I believe in God, but religion is iffy for me. I respect them all, but I think there's all kinds of paths to God I guess is what I mean. Edit: Yes, I do understand the nationalist part of it, I originally thought it was more heavily religious. Having said that, I appreciate your thoughtful reply and it does give a lot to think on. MadSparkle fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 02:17
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Civilized Fishbot posted:I think there are really only two credible responses to this line of thought: While #2 is obviously the correct response, I think there is also a third angle as to why Israel is not the solution. If we were to accept to violently displacing a population in order to establish a safe haven for a minority as a valid course of action, then by that same token, Israelis would be as valid a target as anyone the next time a displaced or diaspora people is looking to get resettled. In a world order that allows genocide to be justified, what happens to Israel if the US ever stops backing them and the world decides it cares as little about the fate of Israelis as it currently does about Palestinians? Striving for a national or global order that will never permit any persecution nor backslide may sound naïve and offer no short-term assurance, but one where genocide is permissible exclusively for the purposes of establishing one specific ethnostate is no more realistic.
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Dec 4, 2023 02:19
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Civilized Fishbot posted:The idea here is basically that if there is no Israel then there's nowhere that Jews can be truly safe. Because the potential for mostly-non-Jewish countries to form violent anti-Jewish movements will never go away, and liberal democracies can't prevent themselves from being ignored or even overthrown by those movements once they've accumulated enough popular support. There's a third response to this line of thought and that is to say that wanting a country that only has [x] people is inherently evil and is the cause of the pogroms, not a solution. Wanting a country that is explicitly for Jews is exactly the same as wanting a country explicitly for non-Jews. The genocide isn't an unfortunate side effect of Israel's goals it is instrumental for them. Israel is doing the same thing Nazi Germany did, and they are doing it for the same horrible reasons. The very concept of Israel (or any ethnostate) is abhorrent, and having genocide done to you in the past is not carte blanche to do it in turn. Nobody gets to have a country to themselves. No ethnic group can exclude others. Doing so is evil.
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Dec 4, 2023 02:30
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KillHour posted:There's a third response to this line of thought and that is to say that wanting a country that only has [x] people is inherently evil and is the cause of the pogroms, not a solution. Wanting a country that is explicitly for Jews is exactly the same as wanting a country explicitly for non-Jews. The genocide isn't an unfortunate side effect of Israel's goals it is instrumental for them. Israel is doing the same thing Nazi Germany did, and they are doing it for the same horrible reasons. The very concept of Israel (or any ethnostate) is abhorrent, and having genocide done to you in the past is not carte blanche to do it in turn. Nobody gets to have a country to themselves. No ethnic group can exclude others. Doing so is evil. Yes, but this isn't a third response, it's a key part of the second response - "it's grotesque to commit crimes against humanity in order to secure one particulsr.commujity from this problem." It's impossible to maintain an ethnostate on previously occupied land without crimes against humanity, and even on previously unoccupied land I think eventually you'd have the same dilemma - what happens if there are enough refugees seeking asylum to make the country minority-Jewish? You either reject them (criminal), forcibly assimilate them into Jewish identity (criminal), integrate them as second-class citizens (criminal) or integrate them as normal citizens (no longer an ethnostate). So I don't think it's a competing perspective to the responses I provided - it's an integral part of the second response, it's the "but" that makes Zionism unacceptable under any circumstance - but I'm glad you spelled it out explicitly because it's obviously key to this discussion. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 02:34
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punishedkissinger posted:well he could have been Palestinian ok? Well, I feel like I may be veering into chud territory just by saying this, but Moses Maimonades and otherTorah scholar/philosophers very clearly wrote that if you throat a rock into a crowd aiming to kill a gentile and kill a fellow jew instead, you didn't really err because you wanted to kill the outsider. Not saying every jew/israeli believes that, but I can see some reaching for that rationale to excuse this, and the local institutions being what they are, I would not be surprised.
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Dec 4, 2023 02:44
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I think the issue with this for me is that the IDF acts as judge, jury, and executioner to a person that was clearly surrendering and not a threat rather than whether it was the correct ethnicity to shoot.
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Dec 4, 2023 02:56
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Sephyr posted:Well, I feel like I may be veering into chud territory just by saying this, but Moses Maimonades and otherTorah scholar/philosophers very clearly wrote that if you throat a rock into a crowd aiming to kill a gentile and kill a fellow jew instead, you didn't really err because you wanted to kill the outsider. Where did he write this? Who else wrote this, and where? I am googling and can't find this line of thought. It's not totally implausible - for every kooky or heinous idea available you will find a distinguished scholar who's espoused it - but I haven't heard this one. Maimonides certainly had an illiberal attitude toward the preciousness of life - he believes in a number of sins that Jews should rather die than commit, including apostasy, and describes conditions under which a Jew is obligated to die rather than commit any sin at all. But he also wasn't a violent bigot - his day job was as a doctor treating mostly non-Jewish patients in the court of an Egyptian/Syrian sultanate. I would be surprised to see Maimonides endorse reckless behavior resulting in the death of an innocent Jew. I can imagine him making a technical point about how it relates to Jewish religious law - like that it's technically it's not an accidental killing of the kind that forces exile - but "didn't really err" sounds out of character for him. Certainly any Jew who wants to be racist, even to the point of endangering other Jews, can find religious sources to encourage him. But I would suggest that these men are more influenced by a 21st century military culture with total contempt for foreign life - and the religious scholars backing it today - than by the writings of the 12th century's most influential Aristotelian. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 02:57
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Civilized Fishbot posted:You're probably just overthinking it. The idea here is very simple. "Because antisemitism is irrevocably popular, country with a minority Jewish population has some possibility of subordinating or even exterminating that population. Therefore Jews are only truly safe in a country where they are not a minority. No such country exists so we must build one, by any means necessary." If you read anti-Semitic literature from the early 20th century like Houston Stewart Chamberlain and the Bayreuth Circle in Germany, they had this belief that the Jewish Europe of the future would be a Jewish ruling class and everyone else would be a racially-mixed slave class that's unable to do anything. You see this crop up today among 4chan types who post the "mutt" memes. And this idyllic and comfortable rural folk existence that Chamberlain imagined existed in the past (despite not ever living the farmer's life himself) would be gone 4-ever. But what makes it so virulent is that the paranoiac is also right in a way. There really is an invisible force denying them and making them unhappy, but I relate this to capitalism in the sense that what's making them unhappy is the inhuman forces of the market which exists to satisfy things which can never really be satisfied. We grow up believing in this basic fantasy structure that leads to disappointment, which requires somebody to blame, and this ends up supporting a fascistic move that identifies an enemy responsible for that failure and from keeping you from your greatness. The Jew has what I desire (in my imagination). They have their own race and a lot of other things going for them, and they even have their own ethnostate now (!), and its reproduction and maintenance depends on them denying that from me.... so obviously, the solution becomes a Final Solution. If I were an anti-Semite, that is. But there's also a slight catch because the war can never be won, either. Peter Viereck back in the 1950s recognized some sublimated anti-Semitism in right-wing American politics. It's like "kosher anti-Semitism" with the cipher-slur of "communism" filling the void. His father, George, went to prison for being a Nazi agent during World War II who delivered memos from the German embassy to Republican congressmen. Think today about the obsession with drag queens and transgender people. I was driving through a rural and very conservative county recently and saw a billboard with a drag queen on it, and it was put up by a conservative group complaining about wokeness. It was very bizarre because I had never seen a drag queen on a billboard in my life, and here one is, but it's these conservatives who are fixated on hating this figure that is denying them something. In the Third Reich, there'd be the image of the Jew up there. I think communism is the real solution, but part of that is a more fundamental change in what we consider important, and giving up certain desires about becoming "great" and so forth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KsPIJK17uk BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 03:10
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My argument would settle on a simple, unassailable fact: Israel has failed to serve as a haven for Jewish life. It is now responsible for the largest case of targeted* Jewish death in four decades. Worse still, this comes after a mythology of hypercompetence in intelligence & military affairs, so it cannot be attributed to growing pains within the concept. With the backing of every major colonial empire in the West, including the largest military superpower in the world, Israel has failed to layout a successful blueprint for absolute defense, which is necessary when discussing a beligerent ethnostate disliked by the nations around it that will not tolerate Jewish death. This issue will only become exacerbated once the Gaza campaign fails, and Israel has nothing to show for it beyond wanton bloodlust & collective retribution. I would also argue that the premise of "We feel we are persecuted and hated everywhere, one bad move from another genocide, let's pack ourself in one place so we can be attacked more easily" is....Honestly pretty stupid. The alternate route the Diaspora has taken—to make their culture & contributions synonymous with the culture of major nations—is, in my opinion, far more effective & resillient. What is the end-state of this belief that every country is ready to murder Jews? All the Jews of the world move to Israel, and then Israel accumulates enough nukes to nuke every country in the world? Fingers crossed that an effective defense against nukes never materializes? * If we're to accept Israeli as synonymous with Jewish Neurolimal fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 03:17
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Neurolimal posted:The alternate route the Diaspora has taken—to make their culture & contributions synonymous with the culture of major nations—is, in my opinion, far more effective & resillient. Completely agree with everything in your post except this sentence - someone might get annoying about "If we're to accept Israeli as synonymous with Jewish," but it's clear what you mean. When Hamas says "let's go out and kill some Israelis," they mean Israeli as in a type of Jew (if they don't outright say "let's go out and kill some Jews" - "Israeli" and "Jew" are used pretty interchangeably in Palestine) But that sentence I disagree with strongly. German Jews were integrated into German industry and culture at every level and it didn't make them so beloved or inseperable from German life that they couldn't be targeted. It just made the figure of the German Jew a more visible target. I think what you're describing is a kind of model-minority status that definitely characterizes the modern Jewish diaspora but not its route to safety. I think "never again" among diaspora Jews, at least the bulk who find themselves in USA/Canada, is pursued in two major ways: - a devotion to building and maintaining a liberal, tolerant society with robust civil rights - assimilation into Whiteness (generally not total assimilation to the point of not being Jewish anymore, but the construction of the White Jewish-American) Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 03:29
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Neurolimal posted:My argument would settle on a simple, unassailable fact: Israel has failed to serve as a haven for Jewish life. It is now responsible for the largest case of targeted* Jewish death in four decades. Worse still, this comes after a mythology of hypercompetence in intelligence & military affairs, so it cannot be attributed to growing pains within the concept. With the backing of every major colonial empire in the West, including the largest military superpower in the world, Israel has failed to layout a successful blueprint for absolute defense, which is necessary when discussing a beligerent ethnostate disliked by the nations around it that will not tolerate Jewish death. This issue will only become exacerbated once the Gaza campaign fails, and Israel has nothing to show for it beyond wanton bloodlust & collective retribution.
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Dec 4, 2023 03:32
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Would Israel ever allow a non-jewish majority in the country, or perhaps a non-jewish majority in its knesset, even if through democracy it were elected into power? Do roads where that possibility - a possibility where non-jews can become a racial/political majority - even exist in Israel?
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Dec 4, 2023 03:57
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Civilized Fishbot posted:Where did he write this? Who else wrote this, and where? I am googling and can't find this line of thought. It's not totally implausible - for every kooky or heinous idea available you will find a distinguished scholar who's espoused it - but I haven't heard this one. My source for this is Christopher Hitchens' 'God is Not great', which I sadly don't have with me to check the exact quote. And for all of his issues, Hitchens was likely the more platable of the New Atheists when it came to writing, when he wasn't letting his War on Terror boner get in the way. And I don't think the violent/authoritarian impulses of the past and of the present are at odds, or need to be exclusive. Sadly, and especially now that reactionary politics keep preaching a return to old ideals, modern racist and exclusionary impulses can and do get boosted by being linked to old sources and rationales, both real and imagined. I meanm it's not for nothing that we have a bearded ogre bodybuilder on US$ 12k a month of bleeding edge steroids preaching that it's all due to his 'caveman' diet of milk and raw testicles.
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Dec 4, 2023 04:00
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Civilized Fishbot posted:Completely agree with everything in your post except this sentence - someone might get annoying about "If we're to accept Israeli as synonymous with Jewish," but it's clear what you mean. When Hamas says "let's go out and kill some Israelis," they mean Israeli as in a type of Jew (if they don't outright say "let's go out and kill some Jews" - "Israeli" and "Jew" are used pretty interchangeably in Palestine) On assimilation, this is unfortunately what a lot of ethnic and religious minorities have to go through - cultural bleaching, to an extent. Yet there are also many areas where the communities are more tightly knit and they still are able to feel connected.
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Dec 4, 2023 04:05
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Sephyr posted:My source for this is Christopher Hitchens' 'God is Not great', which I sadly don't have with me to check the exact quote. And for all of his issues, Hitchens was likely the more platable of the New Atheists when it came to writing, when he wasn't letting his War on Terror boner get in the way. Hitchens was one of the better New Atheists for sure. I found a legal and legitimate PDF of God is Not Great using a popular search engine, I ctrl-fed around for "Maimonides", "rock" , "stone", "crowd" etc and couldn't find anything like what you describe. He dies pull up some racism on Maimonides' part (calling Turks, Africans and nomads animalistic), of course gets very heated about circumcision, and infers from Maimonides' writings against Jesus that he would've made a good Catholic (funny and true). And Hitchens obviously gets a lot of mileage out of the omnipresence of stoning-executions in the Bible. I couldn't find any record of the idea you describe, though. It strikes me as un-Jewish - not the despicable racism which unfortunately does have precedent, but the suggestion that we are not always responsible for the consequences of our recklessness even when those consequences are as extreme as imaginable (the violent death of a fellow Jew). quote:I mean it's not for nothing that we have a bearded ogre bodybuilder on US$ 12k a month of bleeding edge steroids preaching that it's all due to his 'caveman' diet of milk and raw testicles. I have no idea what you are talking about here but that's probably for the best. Verisimilidude posted:Would Israel ever allow a non-jewish majority in the country, or perhaps a non-jewish majority in its knesset, even if through democracy it were elected into power? Do roads where that possibility - a possibility where non-jews can become a racial/political majority - even exist in Israel? Not without a civil war or revolution. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 04:18
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Verisimilidude posted:Would Israel ever allow a non-jewish majority in the country, or perhaps a non-jewish majority in its knesset, even if through democracy it were elected into power? Do roads where that possibility - a possibility where non-jews can become a racial/political majority - even exist in Israel? The nation-state law of 2018 states clearly that "the right to exercise self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people." Israelis are quick to defend themselves from accusations of apartheid by pointing out that Palestinian Israelis have equal civil rights, but will almost in the same breath say that they can't extend the right of return because it would allow Palestinians to outvote them, which cannot be allowed in a democracy. In other words, Israel will only tolerate Palestinians as a politically powerless minority, the way Jews have been tolerated through much of history.
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Dec 4, 2023 04:47
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Neurolimal posted:My argument would settle on a simple, unassailable fact: Israel has failed to serve as a haven for Jewish life. It is now responsible for the largest case of targeted* Jewish death in four decades. Worse still, this comes after a mythology of hypercompetence in intelligence & military affairs, so it cannot be attributed to growing pains within the concept. With the backing of every major colonial empire in the West, including the largest military superpower in the world, Israel has failed to layout a successful blueprint for absolute defense, which is necessary when discussing a beligerent ethnostate disliked by the nations around it that will not tolerate Jewish death. This issue will only become exacerbated once the Gaza campaign fails, and Israel has nothing to show for it beyond wanton bloodlust & collective retribution. May I assail it? Israel by and large has been a haven for Jewish life, in spite of incursions, the most recently extreme of which has been Oct 7. If it weren't, it wouldn't be full of about 7 millions Jews and be older than many of its citizens. Nationalists (and tribalists more generally) are used to and comfortable with the idea of cracking (or dropping) a few eggs to make an omelette. The fact that Jews were murdered en masse in participation of the Israeli project is not a damnation of its ability to protect Jewish life in principle, and is probably even a signal that a strong Jewish state is needed now more than ever, I'd imagine. In short, you use "responsible for" in "responsible for the largest case of targeted Jewish death in four decades" in an extremely cavalier way. Neurolimal posted:What is the end-state of this belief that every country is ready to murder Jews? All the Jews of the world move to Israel, and then Israel accumulates enough nukes to nuke every country in the world? Fingers crossed that an effective defense against nukes never materializes? This is some weird speculation and extrapolation. Why does there need to be some kind of divine end game? As others in this thread have noted, Zionism was largely built on secular "stronger together" and "masters our our own fate" aspirations, with no eye to End Times culture clashes.
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Dec 4, 2023 06:04
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You can't loving argue that 7th of October still would have happened if Israel weren't a genocidal settler colony intent on destroying the Palestinian and stealing their lands. It's a direct indictment of the idea Israel is a safe haven for Jews. The other largest loss of Jewish life since the holocaust was during the Argentine dirty war where 2-3000 Jewish people were killed. Their killers were armed and supported by Israel.
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Dec 4, 2023 06:18
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Pvt. Parts posted:May I assail it? Israel by and large has been a haven for Jewish life, in spite of incursions, the most recently extreme of which has been Oct 7. If it weren't, it wouldn't be full of about 7 millions Jews and be older than many of its citizens. Nationalists (and tribalists more generally) are used to and comfortable with the idea of cracking (or dropping) a few eggs to make an omelette. The fact that Jews were murdered en masse in participation of the Israeli project is not a damnation of its ability to protect Jewish life in principle, and is probably even a signal that a strong Jewish state is needed now more than ever, I'd imagine. Speaking of cavalier - Cracking a few eggs, like you mean those Palestinians currently being massacred ? You mean this collective retribution ? What you're talking about is an idealistic notion which is existing in a state of projection of what it would like to be, not where it realistically actually is - having to co-exist with others, and maybe giving them more equal rights. But I guess if Israel manages to completely wipe them out then they won't have to worry about co-existing with anyone. MadSparkle fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 06:29
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Civilized Fishbot posted:Therefore there has to be one country where it's impossible for a pogrom to happen, because the people who live there are mostly Jewish. I think this is the great tragedy in Israeli thinking because while perfectly understandable, it has a sort of feedback loop where tragedy is inevitable. When a culture has an extreme 'us vs them' outlook, where 'them' are constantly plotting a genocide in 'our's' view, the answer becomes to remove 'them' from equation. Hence the building of buffer zones and constantly expanding settlements and then more buffer zones to ensure their security. This thinking means that not only is one state solution impossible, it makes a two state solution impossible too. That is why Israel is very much still a work in progress what comes to making it "impossible for a pogrom to happen" because, well one just happened. The work will only be completed when Palestinian question is answered. And because one state solution wont happen and two state solution has become an impossibility, the only way forward within this frame work is the annexation of Palestinian territories and ethnically cleansing them. I really don't see any other way that Israeli mindset could accept here. Making two state solution possible would mean the return 1967 borders and I really don't see Israelis accepting that. So tragedy is inevitable.
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Dec 4, 2023 06:54
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It is a useful lie to Israel that antisemitism is almost genetic in non-jews, And that the solution to antisemitism is to develop a heavily armed fortress polity, its guns pointed outwards, aimed at everyone else. It is to say that antisemitism is a unique and special hatred when it is one amongst many, and not speak of the myriad nations and cultures that have utterly disappeared with little trace during the history of mankind and especially during the last 500 years. To combat antisemitism you must combat bigotry. A jewish minority is not safe if it exists alongside other unsafe minorities, and vice versa. Becoming the oppressor, instead of preventing oppression, is a formula for the perpetuation of a bigoted, paranoid world. Rigged Death Trap fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 10:37
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Rigged Death Trap posted:It is a useful lie to Israel that antisemitism is almost genetic in non-jews, And that the solution to antisemitism is to develop a heavily armed fortress polity, its guns pointed outwards, aimed at everyone else. I agree, but the usual counter point is (as pointed above) German Jews before WW2. Integrated, liberal (or communist) and for the most part considered themselves German. My great grandfather served in the German Army in WW1 and my grandparents spoke only German. Little help it was. So the fear is that the population will turn on you, and that just trying to make everyone equal and protected won't work (especially with the current Muslim immigration boogeyman in Europe). I personally agree (I feel better facing the occasional prejudice, which is doubled by actually being Israeli and not just Jewish than feeling complicit in opression), but I can see why people would be uncomfortable with that (especially when they have kids etc). They may ask:Is the onus on the Jews to eliminate antisemitism? Either way, Israel is already there so it's a moot point. We can imagine alternate histories all we want but at the current time having the Jews disperse and assimilate is not a real solution.
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Dec 4, 2023 11:37
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kiminewt posted:I agree, but the usual counter point is (as pointed above) German Jews before WW2. Integrated, liberal (or communist) and for the most part considered themselves German. My great grandfather served in the German Army in WW1 and my grandparents spoke only German. Little help it was. And the accompanying point is it wasnt just jews who were targeted. Dissidents, communists, Slavs, Roma, gay people, the disabled, among others. Nazi Germanys stance on anyone not of the Herrenvolk (a fluid classification that changed on a whim) was unilaterally that of extermination unless they supported Nazism, in which case extermination was deferred. Had they managed to be more successful and capture more territory they would have visited the holocaust on countless more. quote:So the fear is that the population will turn on you, and that just trying to make everyone equal and protected won't work (especially with the current Muslim immigration boogeyman in Europe). I personally agree (I feel better facing the occasional prejudice, which is doubled by actually being Israeli and not just Jewish than feeling complicit in opression), but I can see why people would be uncomfortable with that (especially when they have kids etc). They may ask:Is the onus on the Jews to eliminate antisemitism? No group is responsible for the bigotry inflicted upon them, like no slave should be responsible for their own freedom, but they must fight it regardless. And to that I say Israel is not on the frontlines of that fight: it does not fight antisemitism but instead encourages it, being all too friendly with actual antisemites like Viktor Orban. Strange bedfellows for a country that says it represents the the jews. quote:Either way, Israel is already there so it's a moot point. We can imagine alternate histories all we want but at the current time having the Jews disperse and assimilate is not a real solution. And the strategy for the last half century+ was to make coexistence unthinkable. To foster an ethnonationalist fortress society where solidarity and compromise with the other are unthinkable positions to be reviled and attacked. Its utterly depressing that many Israelis feel that committing genocide is preferable to coexistence. E: in addition Why did Palestinians have to pay the price for antisemitism elsewhere? Rigged Death Trap fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 12:10
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Civilized Fishbot posted:Hitchens was one of the better New Atheists for sure. Huh. Teaches me not to post things without having the source handy. Might have been Dawkins' books, or a false bungled remebrance. Thanks for checking!
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Dec 4, 2023 12:21
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Rigged Death Trap posted:And the accompanying point is it wasnt just jews who were targeted. Dissidents, communists, Slavs, Roma, gay people, the disabled, among others. Nazi Germanys stance on anyone not of the Herrenvolk (a fluid classification that changed on a whim) was unilaterally that of extermination unless they supported Nazism, in which case extermination was deferred. Had they managed to be more successful and capture more territory they would have visited the holocaust on countless more. Obviously any solution that predictibly leads to or requires ethnic cleansing is terrible but when the alternative is "just fix bigotry" I think one can see why it was appealing to people at the time.
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Dec 4, 2023 12:48
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mobby_6kl posted:Obviously any solution that predictibly leads to or requires ethnic cleansing is terrible but gently caress it yall can have this lovely thread im out
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Dec 4, 2023 14:29
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I know murder is wrong but have you considered murders have a motive.
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Dec 4, 2023 14:35
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Rigged Death Trap posted:gently caress it yall can have this lovely thread im out Did you finish reading the sentence? Still probably the right decision, I had to take a break from it for like a month too 
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Dec 4, 2023 14:45
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mobby_6kl posted:The holocaust wasn't even the starting point of zionism. There are centuries of antisemitism in Europe and random pogroms that motivated it. It's not genetic, jsut extremely persistent. Can't wait for the people being ethnically cleansed to decide they also need their own safe place and come to the conclusion that they need to do some ethnic cleansing of their own to protect themselves.
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Dec 4, 2023 14:54
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KillHour posted:Can't wait for the people being ethnically cleansed to decide they also need their own safe place and come to the conclusion that they need to do some ethnic cleansing of their own to protect themselves.
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Dec 4, 2023 14:59
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mobby_6kl posted:Yes it's obviously a horrible, criminal thing that only leads to more misery. I hope it's clear that I'm not trying in any way to advocate for it. I'm not saying you are. I'm saying that the argument is so obviously stupid that it causes me physical pain that the vast majority of the country seems to buy it.
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Dec 4, 2023 15:24
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Rigged Death Trap posted:gently caress it yall can have this lovely thread im out Come on, understanding the reasons for an awful thing is not doubling as condoning or excusing the thing. It's essential for preventing it in the future.
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Dec 4, 2023 15:24
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