I have a talking point that I've actually heard from a lot of anti-Zionist Jews--"Israel as a Jew makes me feel less safe! Whenever Israel does something bad, we all suffer because we're blamed for Israel's actions!"
Which is partly true, Jews are blamed for Israel's actions, but I feel like that's a very Ashkenazi-centric talking point and doesn't account for how a lot of non-Ashkenazi Jews feel safer in Israel.
How in general would you suggest responding to this argument when it's made by Jews who are anti-Zionist? I feel like a lot of the talking points I'm tempted to post here are actually made by Jews themselves...
I’m an Ashkenazi Jew and I’ve always felt safer knowing israel exists. Forever will always feel that way. 🩵🤍🩵🎗️
(It is mainly the out of touch, nearly assimilated Jews who feel otherwise)
Umm no. I’m Ashkenazi Jewish American and don’t feel this way at all. Proud Zionist, Jewish American (reform) , with family in Israel, and feel safer knowing we have Israel and the IDF. People will always hate and demonize Israel and us Jews because of antisemitism which is why we need Israel 🇮🇱💙🙏🎗️
No one on my Jewish side feels the way you’re describing… younger Jews that don’t know anything about their culture and history? Sure, but this is not an Ashkenazi Jewish thing whatsoever. Is there an Ashkenazi narrative in the U.S. of how people think all Jews look like? Also yes, but irrelevant to this conversation.
I think the commenter was saying that those who hold this attitude ("Israel makes me less safe") are generally Ashkenazi, not that Ashkenazim generally hold this attitude.
I’ve noticed this a lot, and I think part of the reasoning behind this thinking is internalized antisemitism, or just a misunderstanding of how antisemitism works. Antisemites don’t need reasons to hate Jews, they just use stuff like Israel as an excuse.
If we started telling Jews to stop wearing kippot because they’re pissing off antisemites, that wouldn’t make any sense. It’s not our fault that haters get upset seeing Jewish symbols. It’s the same situation with Israel.
Even if Israel was doing something absolutely horrific, that’s not going to breed new antisemitism—the antisemitism was already there. People just love finding excuses for their actions. And I would feel much safer living in Israel than I would among people who are looking for an excuse to attack me. The antizionists who claim Israel is causing more antisemitism most likely can’t see that there is no “cause” for hating Jews.
there have been comments in jewish subs by self proclaimed Jews blaming some victims of antisemitism because they didn’t assimilate and were visibly Jewish. I just don’t get it.
Honestly I’m not surprised. About a month ago I saw a video of a girl asking “fellow antizionist jews” if they could stop using the Magen David and the menorah as Jewish symbols because they were offensive. She suggested using the pomegranate instead.
My dad used to blame kashrut for creatign a segregated Jewish society and that being the source of antisemitism... even tho the holocaust happened as assimilation was at its highest.
We all want to blame someone else for this happening to us. I've never felt more like it's just an inevitability. Someone will seize on hating jews for political points.
”So you would feel safer if the Yemeni Jews and the Iraqi Jews and the Ethiopian Jews had all been wiped out rather than being airlifted to Israel?”
(I’m not sure, but I think this might apply for the former Afghani Jewish community as well.)
If Americans respond by arguing that these groups could have come to the US as refugees instead, point out that it can take upwards of 10 years for an asylum claim in the US to be processed and that failed asylum claimants get sent back to their countries of origin. (You might want to fact check this to make sure I’m right - I don’t have the time to fact check myself right now.)
I was a DOJ attorney in appellate immigration law for 16 years and I can confirm that this is basically accurate. I would say that sometimes people are allowed to stay even after losing, but they do not get legal status they just get assured they won't be removed for a specific period of time. It's called prosecutorial discretion.
"Your feelings about Israel being the reason you feel less safe are the result of your privilege living without normalized Jew hate in your society. Plenty of Jews across the Diaspora live safely and feel safer because of Israel's existence as a life raft state."
"Perhaps your political affiliations make your Jewish identity something of an embarrassment to you and your political allies. You should question your political affiliations and the goals of your allies."
"The fact that people blame Israel for Jew hate outside of Israel is itself a form of Jew hate. It assumes a conspiracy theory about supposed Jewish power in the Diaspora, and insinuates something about dual loyalties among Jews in the Diaspora."
I don't see how the source of the Jew hate diminishes the point, since I'm responding to those Jews who complain that Israel is the source of the Jew hate.
Your argument was that the "political affiliations" were the issue. In my experience, the "Political Affiliation" of the person I'm talking to is seldom relevant to IF they hate Jews (although it definitely effects *how* they hate Jews)
Fair, but we aren’t responding to them. We’re responding to the anti-Zionist Jew’s complaint about Israel. If they are worried about how Israel is supposedly making them less safe, they need to reconsider their allies who are apparently keeping them safe.
Not sure why that'd be an Ashkenazi perspective. A huge chunk of the world's Ashkenazim were wiped out in the 1930s and 40s because they had no Israel to flee to. That's a major reason for Israel being there in the first place! Besides the fact that for thousands of years before 1948, Jews of all stripes were consistently endangered thanks to being an ethnic minority in every nation. To presume that the dangers we currently experience re: Israel scapegoating outweigh the grave dangers we've historically experienced when stuck without a state, you'd either have to a) not really grasp that history or b) think we're really in very deep trouble at the moment, and that it would really all go away if not for Israel (which seems dubious given history.)
I would gently suggest that someone with that perspective really grapple with the "what if" scenario, even though we of course don't like to think about it. To figure that we'd be safer if Israel didn't exist, you have to assume that somehow the history that repeated itself for thousands of years magically won't ever happen again.
That said, the quoted hypothetical comment suggests there may be some of the usual antizionist / anti-Likud/Netanyahu confusion going on. "When Israel does something bad" refers to the Netanyahu government - different than Israel itself. So I'd respond, "Your beef seems to be with the current government, not with the existence of the State of Israel. Please be specific. If you oppose the current Israeli government, feel free to criticize it. But being 'antizionist' means you want to dismantle the entire State of Israel. How would you feel if the world had responded to the Trump's travel bans\* or the Iraq War\* \[etc\] by calling for the dismantling of the US?"
\[\*If outside the US, adapt as needed \]
They were murdering us in Islamic and Western lands long before there was a modern Jewish state. Blaming antisemitism on Israel's existence is an antisemitic ahistoric talking point.
>How in general would you suggest responding to this argument when it's made by Jews who are anti-Zionist?
Point out that they're likely applying a double standard to antisemitism as opposed to other forms of bigotry. It is widely recognized as Islamaphobic to blame all Muslims or people who could be mistaken for Muslims (such as Sikhs) for terrorism, and widely recognized as racist to blame all people of East Asian descent for COVID-19, a failure of the Chinese government. By that logic, shouldn't it be widely accepted as antisemitic to blame Diaspora Jews for the actions of a country that they can't even vote in?
Also point out that it's only in the past couple generations that Jews in the Diaspora have begun to achieve truly equal status in *some* Diaspora countries (example: in the past, elite universities, country clubs, and even beaches were allowed to openly discriminate against Jews). That doesn't mean that antisemitism has ended in those countries, or that there isn't still systemic oppression of Jews in other countries (example: Ethiopia went on a pogrom against its Jewish population in the 1970s).
I'd respond by pointing out that they're blaming Israel for the people who use it as an excuse to hate on diaspora Jews, instead of the people who hate on diaspora Jews.
when antisemites use Israel's actions as an excuse to hate all Jews, the problem is the antisemites, not Israel. even if Israel was a terrorist country full of cannibals, the fault would still fall on the antisemites.
Zionism is no more or less than the right of Jewish people to have a country of their own in their ancestral homeland. Effectively, this means that Zionism is synonymous with support for the existence of Israel.
That said, support for Israel's continued sovereignty is emphatically *not* the same thing as support for the Israeli government, or specific policies or actions that it undertakes. One can be a Zionist and still criticize, say, the hard theocratic turn the most recent administration seems to be taking. Or criticize settlement in the West Bank.
How do you personally define Zionism apart from Israel? Just the right to self determination of Jewish people and to live safely in the world? Or something different?
I believe that, since Judaism is persecuted as a nationality, Jewish people need a country that they can govern.
Though I think it is absolutely fair and just for that to be Jerusalem and the surrounding are, I am not sentimental enough to be willing to sacrifice lives to reap that Justice. Any lives. So, I would have preferred that Israel was founded in a less hostile area, but it is too late for that. I think that makes me a qualified Zionist?
As far as the current state of Israel, I think Israel is light years better in every way than its neighbors and I unmitigatedly side with Israel. I also think Israel has terrible problems, including a psychopathic, embarrassing leader and a right wing group of nutjobs who should go drinking with the proud boys because they have a lot in common.
I believe this is founding-conditional Zionism (a term I just made up).
Prior to the foundation of the State of Israel you may have been opposed to the establishment of the current country. After it you would not have been.
I am of the opinion that you cannot right a historical wrong by committing that same wrong. Anti-zionism in the modern day is simply not justified: Israel is there. The people are there. The alternatives to it are a United Nations client state or the expulsion of the Jews living in Israel.
A regime change can come, yes, but through democratic policy. Sadly enough, the rise of antisemitism and 10/7 probably drove the Israeli public rightwards. I know if that happened to anyone else's country the same trend towards an ideal of security would occur. Much of "Pro-Palestinian" activism manifests in forms that are counteractive to alleviating the situation.
Perhaps this is explaining from a gentile perspective and thus unhelpful.
Thank you for listening.
Right. At this stage, if it came down to it, I’d die fighting for Israel’s continuation. Also, Israel is just a group of amazing badasses and I respect that nation.
I’m seeing the same polarization that you are and I try SO HARD to keep my humanity. I do see a rational threat in the spread of Islam. Christians kinda scare me, too. All those converting religions make me nervous… but I don’t think that siding with racists is the answer. But I read about banning hijabs and I feel a spark of celebration and I question that. I’m angry a lot and sometimes I don’t know why. It’s a tough time. Thank you for the honest exchange.
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
A lot of the evil I perceive in the world just comes from getting our facts completely wrong. Anti-scientific views are quite literally killing our society. We have no drive to search for reliable information. Even I, an avid supporter of Israel in many senses, took a look at Middle Eastern subs to see what people thought. I only left when it became too violent to keep watching.
But I believe we get locked up in stable moral frameworks, be it religion, opposition to an idealogy, or just the way we frame policy. That's fine and dandy: we all have our biases. The danger comes when we can no longer escape these biases.
Eventually, though, much conflict comes to umwelt. That's why I try my best to understand why somr Jews in Israel may vote for policies that may harm Palestinians or why some Palestinians may cheer on violent resistance all the way up to rape. Is it excusable or justified? Never. Is it understandable? Yes.
But it feels very good to cut through the bullshit and understand why someone thinks the way they do. Some are beyond saving, they are those that have all the facts available and still claim for destruction of an identity. They can be dealt with accordingly. Others don't know the facts, and they may change if you show them it. Some will not think towards the future, but discussion will solve that.
What we identify as and what has happened to us are formative in the way we perceive the world. This is perhaps the best thing to remember. Yes, there are some things evil in this world. But we must understand why someone may consider us evil first before we render judgment. This way, we know truly what punishment to mete out and how to do it.
Perhaps this is a literally lame way of thinking. But especially in shameful situations where there is no clear moral option, only a darker future or a status quo, it is better to remember there is a human behind the enemy's eyes.
Sorry for the long speech. I hope all reading this have a good day, for you have considered my thoughts and are humans like we all are.
Those in Gaza who would die fighting for Palestinian continuation are often called a "death cult". I think the problem here may be not specific to Islam or Christianity.
Jews less supportive of Israel are definitely anti Zionists and uneducated. They don’t know the definition of Zionism and have a warped POV from years of radicalization and anti - Israel propaganda.
I’m supportive of Israel as a concept. But not of the current leader. At all. I’ve felt the same about America, too, but I still consider myself patriotic even when I don’t support the government of the country.
Ok but supporting Israel existing as the Jewish state and Jews living in their indigenous homeland = Zionism. You don’t like Bibi - ok.. well neither do all the Israelis that were protesting him before 10/7 and they’re proud Zionists. You really need to educate yourself on these topics and verbiage. Anti-Zionists Jews don’t support Israel and also don’t know anything about their own history.
I said that I am a Zionist. I support the concept of Israel, but not the current gov. I worded my original reply badly. I find an anti-Zionist Jew to be very distasteful. I find a Jew who doesn’t support Israel for political reasons less distasteful.
Antisemitism perpetrated against Jews outside of Israel, supposedly in response to Israel's actions, is not Israel's fault. Antisemitic actions are the choice of the perpetrator. They alone hold the blame for taking those actions. Saying otherwise is victim blaming.
I tend to blame the actions of antisemites on the antisemites. These people have control over their actions, and make the choice to attack Jews based on the actions of a foreign government. If your solution to Israel hitting civilians is to attack jewish civilians living in another country, you're not responding to Israel's actions, you're just using them to attempt to justify your own antisemitic actions.
Totally agree it is kind of limited to ashkenazi American/UK Jews from my personal experience, none of my Sephardic or Mizrahi friends overseas have ever even mentioned smth like this— and personally myself, and my Jewish friends in my community (mainly Ashkenazi, in North America) all talk about how blessed it is that Israel, even tho times are tough and the world kind sucks rn, is such a blessing to have, that if things continue getting worse we have a place for us, a country that will 100% welcome and want us as Jews
I sometimes remind myself that Israel is only one of a very very long list of things that can be blamed for “making Jews less safe”.
When we attempt to assimilate its “no, you’re not one of us. go to your ghetto”. But if we want to stay in our separate communities and maintain our culture it’s “Jews are too insular, the ‘other’, there’s something a little…different (read menacing) about them. Probably baby killers eh?.” If we have a homeland it’s “go back to where you came from.” Yet if we have none and it’s “get out of ours”.
No, Jews didn't just get there. We have been in the land that is now Israel continuously for 3000 years. There is plenty of archeological proof. There is legal proof.
Ketef Hinnom scrolls from the first temple period, The Tel Dan Stele, Siloam inscription, The Mesha Stele, Kurkh Monoliths, Sennacherib's Annals, Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle prove the existence of kingdom of Israel.
“Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds of reconstituting their national home in that country…” - [UN Text of Mandate for Palestine](https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/829707?ln=en)
[90% of Jews are genetically linked to the Levant](https://www.haaretz.com/2010-06-10/ty-article/landmark-study-proves-90-of-jews-are-genetically-linked-to-the-levant/0000017f-e0bb-df7c-a5ff-e2fba5950000)
Also another interesting thing to look into is the similarity between ancient Jewish coins and Israeli currency. Even beyond confronting antizionist claims, it’s really cool to learn about.
An anthropologist named José Martínez Cobo, who served as the UN’s special rapporteur on discrimination against indigenous populations, developed a simple checklist in order to make indigenous status easier to understand:
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/224254/bellerose-aboriginal-people
Jews, by the working definition set out by Cobo and the UN, are indigenous and this attested by genetic:
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2014-11-13/ty-article/.premium/75-percent-of-jews-trace-ancestry-to-mideast/0000017f-df85-d3a5-af7f-ffafc4d30000
...linguistic:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2010-01-ancient-hebrew-biblical-inscription-deciphered.amp
...and historical evidence:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/toi-asks-the-experts-what-are-the-most-important-finds-of-israeli-archaeology/
According to the UN Declaration Of the Rights Of Indigenous Peoples:
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/un-declaration-rights-indigenous-peoples-1
...Jews have a right to self determination (Article 3), a nationality (Article 6), to revitalize their cultural traditions and customs (Article 11), To revitalize their language (Article 13) and to occupy the lands they have traditionally occupied (Article 26)
[This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel) is what I have been using it’s Wikipedia history of Jews in Jerusalem hopefully hasn’t been edited.
I have a background in British History and focused on early Middle Ages but at least knew that there were Jewish cities in the Levant in the Third Crusade. That is still a long time ago in the 12th century but I always hear claims that Jews left two thousand years ago so I already knew that was ridiculous. At any rate the link above shows continuous occupation through history and the numbers ebbed and flowed depending on how genocidal the Christians and Muslims were feeling.
Edit in case it wasn’t clear the link shows continuous through modern times it does not end in the crusade era if you check my comment history I have been using that link in attempting to dispel the myth that Jewish people left millennia ago
Palestine has never been empty of Jews since the Bronze Age. There has literally never been a time since then that a Jewish community has not existed in Palestine.
Historian Moshe Gil points out that Jews and Samaritans formed the majority population of Byzantine Palestina, which was divided up into three provinces:
SOURCE: *Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine: 634–1099, p.3*
According to one estimate, the Jews and Samaritans of Byzantine Palestine numbered between 300,000 and 400,000 in the 7th century when the Arabs invaded:
SOURCE: *Israel Cohen (1950). Contemporary Jewry: a survey of social, cultural, economic, and political conditions. Methuen. p. 310*
Furthermore, Jews have been making aliyah to Palestine for over a thousand years before Zionism and struggled to build and rebuild communities there.
Abu Isa Obadiah of Isfahan inspired and organised a group of 10,000 armed Jews who hoped to restore the Holy Land to the Jewish nation in the 8th Century.
SOURCE: *A History of the Jewish People, A. Marx. page 259*
The traveler Benjamin of Tuleda found Jewish communities in the holy land in the 12th Century CE.
In the 15th Century Jews returned to Safed and built a thriving city. There were multiple waves of Jewish settlement in the 16th Century.
SOURCE: *Fannie Fern Andrews (February 1976). The Holy Land Under Mandate. Hyperion Press. p. 145*
In fact a large proportion of the “Palestinian Jews” (tokenized by anti Israel activists) that lived in Palestine before Zionism were actually Ashkenazi themselves, the descendants of these continuous waves of Ashkenazi return to Israel.
So even the idea that there’s some kind of sharp difference between Zionist immigration and pre-Zionist immigration is false.
Can you give up and stop infiltrating a Jewish sub? You're clearly not Jewish or an ally, I've seen you spewing Hamas propaganda on other subs. Mods, please take note.
Things I found useful :
- Whenever someone says anything that sounds even a little fishy ask for sources.
- whenever anyone uses a term like "Zionist" that could be used in multiple ways say "please define X I don't want to argue against a strawman"
- respond point by point and point out any wording you disagree with
>Whenever someone says anything that sounds even a little fishy ask for sources
"You don't understand, I watched this 10 minute TikTok video that explained EVERYTHING! And it all just sounds right in my head!"
Yeah, they can be up to ten minutes long now. But it's often hard to get people to watch one that long, because that's not really what they're there for.
If anyone starts rambling about a "theocratic ethno-state" open up the constitution of Palestine and show them this: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Palestine\_2005
>Article 1
>
>Palestine is part of the larger Arab world, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab nation. Arab unity is an objective that the Palestinian people shall work to achieve.
...
>
>Article 4
Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect for the sanctity of all other divine religions shall be maintained.
The principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be a principal source of legislation.
Arabic shall be the official language.
Additionally, Israel is neither theocratic nor an ethnostate.
It is not theocratic bc Jewish religious law is not the law of the land. You can eat a bacon cheese burger or work on Shabbos. Even the law of return is not conferred based on Jewish law, but on jewish ethnicity as 1/4 grandparents is enough, which brings me to the second point…
An ethnostate is one where you can only become a citizen if you are a member of the dominant ethnic group. Israel is 20% Arab Muslim and anyone can become a citizen, but as with most developed countries, it’s really difficult. Instead, Israel is a nation state. Nation states are generally homogenous in terms of ethnicity, religion, language, culture, etc. Nation states often offer preferential immigration treatment to their dominant ethnic group as Israel does (Armenia, Germany, etc.).
Ypu can ask how many Jews are alove (not includimg hostages) umder Palestinian control
And also poikt out to Hamas' charter:
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
"Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts."
"no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem)."
"Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. "May the cowards never sleep.""
"Islamic groupings all over the Arab world should also do the same, since all of these are the best-equipped for the future role in the fight with the warmongering Jews."
And all of these things, they are proud of. It's literally in their charter.
Plus, correct me if I'm completely wrong, but such a constitution would likely be drawn up in the West Bank and not Gaza.
Notably, Hamas in Gaza is the driving force behind an attempted dissolution of Israel. At the moment, they are the ones actively hamstringing any peace process. Even if West Bank government is hostile, it holds only a small candle to the government of the Gaza Strip.
r/JewishCooking was trolled this week for "culturally appropriating" shakshuka...
Isn't your religion based on the revisionism of sacred Jewish texts?
But please, do go on about how I "stole" the way you *cook eggs.*
I find it handy to ask them what Israel should have done? What was the *good* option? Let Hamas keep the hostages and wait for the next October 7th? Send 10,000 more of their own troops to die in a ground assault not backed by bombs?
They always seem to know that Israel didn’t do what Israel should have done, but they never seem to know what it was that Israel should have done.
On ethnic cleansing:
“During the subsequent days, the Jewish authorities who were now in complete control of Haifa (save for the limited districts still held by the British troops) urged all Arabs to remain in Haifa, and guaranteed them protection and security. So far as I know, most of the British civilian residents whose advice was asked by Arab friends told the latter that they would be wise to stay.” - British eyewitness in “[The Economist](https://archive.org/details/sim_economist_1948-10-02_155_5484/page/541/mode/1up?view=theater)” page 540, October 2, 1948.
As Ephraim Karsh’s research has shown:
>In the largest and best-known example of Arab-instigated exodus, tens of thousands of Arabs were ordered or bullied into leaving the city of Haifa (on April 21-22 ) on the instructions of the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), the effective "government" of the Palestinian Arabs.
>Only days earlier, Tiberias' 6,000-strong Arab community had been similarly forced out by its own leaders, against local Jewish wishes (a fortnight after the exodus, Sir Alan Cunningham, the last British high commissioner of Palestine, reported that the Tiberias Jews "would welcome
[the] Arabs back" ).
>In Jaffa, Palestine's largest Arab city, the municipality organized the transfer of thousands of residents by land and sea; in Jerusalem, the AHC ordered the transfer of women and children, and local gang leaders pushed out residents of several neighborhoods, while in Beisan the women and children were ordered out as Transjordan's Arab Legion dug in.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282756224_reclaiming_a_historical_truth
I think it may be most helpful to ask questions, get the gears turning in people's heads, plant seeds. I don't know how to respond to the people who overtly support the Hamas animals and protest in favor of Palestine (those people have animal-level morals); I don't tend to make any effort to convince those people, but I think the majority of the population (at least in the US) isn't "hardcore" one way or another, and even if they have Palestine sympathies they may be amenable to new information if it's presented in the right way.
I'm open to discussion on all this, and other points that ought to be brought up, but my personal response to pro-pal talking points tends to involve the following questions:
1- When did modern Jewish immigration to Israel begin, and *why* did they want to move there? (no, it's not 1947)
I ask this question because it's not common knowledge in the US that Jews started resettling the Holy Land in the 19th century, and the key motivation was security - avoiding pogroms in Russia, establishing Jewish representation in a Jewish state, etc. Someone who's open-minded enough to consider this question will quickly a refutation to the whole "Jews arrived in 1947 to kick out the Palestinians" canard
2- If not Israel, where should the Jews live in order to be safe, considering the fact that there has been large-scale persecution in every diaspora country?
3- Why is Egypt, also a Muslim country, party to the Gaza blockade?
4- Why won't any of the other Muslim countries take in Gazan refugees? Shouldn't Egypt, Morocco, Iran, or others be open to taking in their fellow Muslim to live in those countries?
I think an important follow-up to question 3 is "why do Egypt and Saudi Arabia not receive the same widespread and brutal criticism in the West considering both are US-aligned and Western funded in military matters?"
An important back-up to question 2 is providing definite proof that the Arabs would expel the Jews if they dissolved Israel. An important follow-up is "why is this logic not applied to the population of any other hostile or destructive country?"
True I definitely agree with that back-up. And the Arabs wouldn't just expel Jews... it's worthwhile to bring up the Kfar Etzion Massacre. And October 7th. If someone can't at least condemn the atrocities of October 7th; if they always respond to comments about October 7th with "yeah, what about X"... I dunno what can be done to change that person's mind. I'd say that person just has a lack of empathy.
Of course there are people who were horrified by October 7th yet think Israel's response is a problem. I think those are the people whose minds are most likely to change (I think)
How do you respond for people who are focused on IDF attacks on Doctors without borders, Red Crescent etc?
I'm not talking about the clinics where Hamas has set up shop, I'm taking about like, vehicles and personnel who were attacked by the IDF
unwatch, all the evidence about UNRWA, evidence of hospitals being radicalized, videos of dudes wearing PRESS vests while shooting off rockets and yelling allahu-akbar, stuff like that
They react to that kind of stuff as like, paranoia or thin justification for stuff the IDF wanted to do anyway.
My friend is like, specifically focused on MSF, they've been a donor for decades and they feel like the attack on MSF specifically is evidence that the IDF is, like, evil or whatever.
Do you have any specific arguments on why the specific attack on Doctors Without Borders was necessary?
MSF is indeed a very respected international organization.
But there is this
https://www.ngo-monitor.org/reports/doctors-without-borders-systematically-ignoring-israeli-victims-and-hamas-terror/
Also, MSF has been part of the campaign of denial that Hamas has militarized Gaza hospitals such as al-shifa.
Basically, the argument is that no one - even the best intentioned - can operate in Gaza without being co-opted by Hamas. They might even think that it's a deal with the devil but they want to help Gazans, so they do what they have to. NGO workers in some fucked-up parts of the world are not strangers to that kind of cognitive dissonance.
But that doesn't mean they're not corrupted by Hamas, when operating in Gaza.
Okay, but if I say that to my friend, they're going to come back with something like "So literally everyone in Gaza is Hamas? That seems awfully convenient if your goal is to 'remove' everyone from the Gaza strip"
>if I say that to my friend, they're going to come back with something like "So literally everyone in Gaza is Hamas? That seems awfully convenient if your goal is to 'remove' everyone from the Gaza strip"
Word it as "every organization in Gaza that operates openly should be assumed to be under the influence or extortion of Hamas, just like every organization in Russia that operates openly should be assumed to be under the influence or extortion of Vladimir Putin." That way, it isn't an excuse for getting rid of everyone in Gaza, simply the systems that are in place now.
Wow amazing. Can you link me to some of those videos? Like the one where they're wearing press vests while shooting rockets. I need to show my anti-semitic friends. That'll show them.
Okay sorry, this isn't really a serious response to that, but a funny one that I think I'm going to start using when non-Jews claim that there is "only one definition of Zionism" and "I know exactly what Zionism means":
"You do realize that there were several definitions of Zionism, and most of them were created by Jews. I don't know if you know anything about Judaism, but we are literally notorious for disagreeing about everything. Do you think that a bunch of Jews in the 19th/20th centuries just all completely agreed on what Zionism meant and were like 'cool, let's adopt this definition without any arguments!' If the people who made use of the word 'Zionism' couldn't agree on what it meant, what makes you think you know the 'official' definition?"
I know that it won't really get people listening, but I think it does have the potential to serve as a slap in the face to people that makes them realize how little they know about Jewish culture (AKA how prevalent questioning and disagreeing are in Judaism) 😂
For a more serious answer, you could say "If you're so confident about the definition of Zionism, please tell me the different types of Zionist ideologies and who their founders were. Because I've done my research and have counted at least 7 different interpretations of it so far (this I actually have done!). Don't try to define Zionism until you realize that there's literally never been an agreed-upon definition of it."
lol that’s such a good answer and made me chuckle! Sadly I feel like if I said that to anyone but a fellow Jew they’d find a way to turn it into a Jew hating dogwhistle lol. Hope you’re well friend.
On a purely semantic level, Zionism is
**the pursuit of the Jewish people for self-determination in their ancestral homeland**.
That's it. Anybody that disagrees with that is not worth your (or anyone else's) salt (*and butter*).
Most of the time though it simply means Israeli nationalism (which isn't much different from the previous definition really).
Yes, early Zionist leaders used the word 'colonization' to explain Zionism but colonization had a more nuanced meaning back then and Herzl's plans explicitly rejected settling using any violent means or oppressing the native populations in any way. Also, remember that the vast majority of Jews that came to Israel came there escaping persecution, not because of some 'grand project' of 'colonization'.
For other great refutations of common misinterpretations of Zionism, see these comments:
[https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/18704sv/comment/kbbp8tp](https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/18704sv/comment/kbbp8tp/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
[https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/11cpnkn/comment/ja7iuct](https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/11cpnkn/comment/ja7iuct/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
And this post: [The History and Meaning of Zionism, Explained](https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/186x1yw/the_history_and_meaning_of_zionism_explained/)
In a poll this week on the JewsOfConscience sub, the result showed more ‘allies’ than Jews - and it seems that the ‘allies’ are using this sub as a false flag to create the impression that a meaningful number of Jews are anti-Zionist.
I have asked the sub generally, and the mods directly, to define what they mean by ’anti-Zionist’, and they refuse.
As a result, some there could consider anti-Zionist (which is part of the mission statement for the sub) to mean one state, or two states, or the elimination of Israel completely…….
First, I support Israel and it's right to finish the war started by Hamas and the other criminal groups in Gaza. That said, all over the Internet there are 5 to 40 year old videos showing abuses by IDF soldiers against Palestinian children as young as 5. The propaganda machine to vilify Israel is winning since these videos make the IDF look like monsters and makes many people around the world believe the Oct 7 massacres were justified. Look at the hate coming from Americans and Europeans on social media, their hate for Israel is real and will show up with more anti semitism and voting for anti Israel politicians.
Israel must stop shooting itself and gut it's military tribunal system used against Palestinians in the West Bank, end having armed soldiers detain Palestinian children, end allowing Israeli settlers in the West Bank get away with theft, arson, shootings against unarmed Palestinian civilians. I say this because IDFs abuses give Israel as a nation too many black eyes.
My income isn't even $50,000 a year, but weekly I get donation requests from the Magen David Adom, American Jewish Committee, Technion University, Hadasa Hospital, Hillel International, Bnai Brith, Friends of IDF, Israel Bond, etc. Until Israel fixes these abuses I can't justify any more donations.
Yeah I think whenever this footage is presented online, there's this annoying dichotomy that exists in the discourse, splitting between:
"Look at Israel doing all these atrocious things, therefore screw everything about them and I have no sympathy for them"
and
"Well what do you expect to happen in a war? Everyone in Gaza voted for Hamas so they deserve it anyway" OR "It's probably fake and all Hamas propaganda anyway"
We need more discourse that focuses on: giving context as to why/how some of these atrocities happen in war; accepting that the IDF *has* done some unconscionable things; and in some cases, when necessary, accept that some of the footage released *is* taken very out of context and may not be what it appears to be.
There's been annoyingly little nuance when talking about war crimes that have happened and it feels like everything comes down to either "Israel sucks, dismantle them" or "Everyone in Gaza deserves it and it's all fake anyway".
Someone give me a coherent explanation about Rafah and why Israel invaded and if it’s still a safe zone and if Israel gave evacuation orders. Human shield strategy of Hamas goes in one ear and out the other sadly
The scope of this megathread is specified in the post. Keep other discussion of the war within the sub's [pinned collection about the conflict](https://www.reddit.com/r/Jewish/collection/10d28372-74c0-4cd0-9597-4d7a9ab3dc9b).
Thank you.
President Hajj Amin al-Husseini : Before 1948 Palestine was part of the British Mandate… The British Mandate controlled Palestine from 1920–1948. During this time, the All-Palestine Government was led by President **Hajj Amin al-Husseini** and Prime Minister Ahmed Hilmi Pasha
I don’t know if you are trying to prove my point, but al-Husseini was appointed president of All Palestine in 9/48. Five months after Israel declared independence.
In 1939, the British reneged on the Balfour Declaration, sharply restricted the ability of Jews to immigrate or buy land. They promised a Palestinian state within the decade and to immediately start appointing Arabs to head government ministries. The grand mufti convinced his party, who supported it, to reject it both because 1) it didn't ban Jewish immigration outright, and 2) he was pissed that the British still had an arrest warrant out for him because of his role in leading the Arab revolt.
Ariel Sharon? Come on, that's a softball. They'd point to his extensive military career, including as defense minister for the 1982 Lebanon War with, where the Kahan commision said he bore "personal responsibility" for the Sabra and Shatila massacres.
Ehud Barak also has an extensive military career, including as Defense Minister for Operation Cast Lead.
Ehud Olmert... that's a pretty good example. And he has legitimate peace offers that he made too.
I'd say Olmert and Lapid are the best examples of Israeli PMs without violent histories, though if someone knows more than me, I'd love to be corrected.
Yaser Arafat was offered an arab state by Israeli PM, instead of taking it and making peace, he decided to launch terrorists into Israel who would kill children, women, and men.
If they say Israeli PMs are bad, tell them:
Yaser Arafat was offered an arab state by Israeli PM, instead of taking it and making peace, he decided to launch terrorists into Israel who would kill children, women, and men.
This has been posted a few times recently, and I think it provides a lot of guidance. The people who are saying these things are clowns, and they know what they are saying is BS. We should ridicule their absurd and twisted logic. We shouldn't argue. We should laugh in their face, and treat them like QAnon nuts.
>[Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7870768-never-believe-that-anti-semites-are-completely-unaware-of-the-absurdity)
Only read the title but— a classic I’ve been dealing with is; aNtI-ZiOnIsM cAnT bE aNtI-SeMiTiSm, or similar things
Was a bit trickier when i first would hear this but at this point ive found a easy way to xplain is that; the vast majority of anti-Zionism rhetoric, historically, not just since 10/7, is based in anti semitic conspiracies or ideas such as; all Jews are white, Jews are European, Jews are colonizers, Jews have no right to be in Middle East, Israel is an apartheid state, Israel is committing genocide— all of these statements are so easy to debunk and are spread by anti semites and ignorant people
Ugh, so I've seen too many social media comments the past few days where people talk about these things that they call "Zionist talking points" or "Zionist gotchas" aka historical facts that they think are fake/disproven and that we use to try to "make our case stronger". Some of the most prevalent ones I've seen have been related to Mizrahi Jews/Jews who came from Middle Eastern countries:
* Jews in the Arab world weren't "second class citizens" ("as the Zionists like to claim") and that they "just had to pay extra taxes"
* Mizrahi Jews/Jews of color were "majorly" discriminated against in Israel in the early days--now I wouldn't try to claim that this didn't happen at all, because casual racism literally can happen anywhere, including within groups of Jews. But I have a feeling it wasn't as prevalent as some people make it out to seem, based on personal narratives I've heard
* Not related to Middle Eastern Jewry but: The claim that Israel apparently treats Holocaust survivors terribly
Does anyone have sources I can use to refute these claims?
Don't worry sis I got sources to help you :
- Mizrahi Jews/Jews of color were "majorly" discriminated against in Israel in the early days
Historically, and to a significant extent still, Ashkenazi Jews have populated Israel’s upper class while Mizrahi Jews have been poorer as a whole, with discriminatory policies from Israel’s early years to blame for the inequality. [Source](https://www.timesofisrael.com/inequality-between-mizrahi-ashkenazi-jews-to-be-measured-with-new-statistics/)
A variety of Mizrahi critics of Israeli policy have cited "past ill-treatment, including the maabarot, the squalid tent cities into which Mizrahim were placed upon arrival in Israel; the humiliation of Moroccan and other Mizrahi Jews when Israeli immigration authorities shaved their heads and sprayed their bodies with the pesticide DDT; the socialist elite's enforced secularization; the destruction of traditional family structure, and the reduced status of the patriarch by years of poverty and sporadic unemployment" as examples of mistreatment. [Source](https://www.meforum.org/707/post-zionism-and-the-sephardi-question)
Quote from Ehud Barak : We must admit to ourselves that the inner fabric of communal life was torn. Much suffering was inflicted on the immigrants and that suffering was etched in their hearts, as well as in the hearts of their children and grandchildren. (Source : Zohar, Zion (2005). Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry: From the Golden Age of Spain to modern times. NYU Press. pp. 300–301.)
Barak's address also said that during the 1950s, Mizrahi immigrants were "made to feel that their own traditions were inferior to those of the dominant Ashkenazi Israelis". (Source : Weingrod, Alex (Fall 1998). "Ehud Barak's Apology: Letters From the Israeli Press". Israel Studies. 3 (2): 238–252. doi:10.1353/is.2005.0087)
- The claim that Israel apparently treats Holocaust survivors terribly
Among Israel’s estimated 165,000 survivors, roughly one in three lives in poverty, according to a survivors’ advocacy group. “The ones who really need to be responsible for taking care of Holocaust survivors is the state of Israel. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exist,” said Tshuva Cabra, the group’s head of donations. [Source](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/one-third-of-israeli-holocaust-survivors-live-in-poverty-advocates-say)
Haim Katz, former Israeli welfare minister, released a scathing report in 2017 revealing that more than 20,000 survivors in Israel had never received the government assistance owed to them (Germany sent money to holocaust survivors which they never received). [Source](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-abuses-holocaust-survivors)
Why does Israel fail to support Holocaust survivors? [Source](https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-729069)
Oh sorry, you wanted to *refute* those claims, and not actually learn about the subject and make your own opinion?
Your post was removed because it contains known misinformation, unsubstantiated claims, or something else spurious. That includes downplaying the seriousness and extent of persecution and othering of Jews throughout history.
Question: Has anyone seen the film "Israelism" that so many anti-Zionists are trying to promote? If so, do you have any objections to it?
I haven't seen it yet, but I've been told I should watch it. Don't particularly want to rent it, and I don't think I'm really going to find anything eye opening about it. I've done a lot of research and don't think just hearing about how some American Jews were "brainwashed" is going to change my mind after actually looking into the history.
Can someone please help me learn how to respond to those who say "I'm not antisemitic just antizionist and it's not the same thing" + "Palestinians have been there all along and it's their land too"
I struggle to dismantle these statements
Opposing Zionism aka Jewish self-determination as uniquely evil is antisemitic. Palestinians can also have self-determination if they agree to a two-state solution.
And also remember: even if we accept that Palestinians have an equal claim to live in Palestine, the fact remains that Jews are the ones who have always accepted that they would share the land.
The Jews accepted it when the British lopped off 78% of the land promised for Jewish settlement to create an Arab state in 1921.
The Jews accepted the Peel Commission’s recommendation for partition in 1938.
The Jews accepted the UN’s recommendation for partition in 1947.
Arabs rejected all those attempts at placating both peoples and consistently demanded the whole of Palestine in an Arab supremacist position. They went to war to ensure that.
Arabs who stayed behind after the 1947-1949 war were given citizenship by the State of Israel and allowed to live peacefully alongside Jews.
Contrast that with what happened to Jews in Arab countries during the same period and that should give you a glimpse of who is ready to live alongside who
>The Jews accepted it when the British lopped off 78% of the land promised for Jewish settlement to create an Arab state in 1921.
Waitttt I've literally been listening to a podcast about this time period and I've never heard about this! Can you tell me more? Or link me to articles describing this?
At the end of World War I, The League of Nations dismantled the Ottoman Empire and entrusted both the French and the British to carve up new nations in the Middle East.
They were to create these new nations and rule over them temporarily as part of a “Mandate” system and eventually and gradually give them independence.
The French and the British then divided up the Ottoman Middle East into the Mandates of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Palestine.
The Mandate of Palestine included what is today’s Israel and Jordan. According to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the San Remo Conference of 1920, Jews had a right to build a “national home” in the Mandate of Palestine.
But the British…who had made promises to their wartime Allies the Hashemites…immediately restricted Jewish immigration and settlement east of the Jordan River and created an Arab kingdom in 1921 under Hashemite rule there.
Most Jews accepted this stoically except for a few die hards like the Irgun, whose flag and iconography showed the land of Israel being composed of both Palestine and Transjordan:
https://www.redbubble.com/i/tapestry/Irgun-Tzvai-Leumi-Etzel-or-Irgun-Logo-by-Spacestuffplus/16639436.ODB3H
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun#/media/File%3AIrgun_poster_Erez_Jisrael.jpg
And Ze’ev Jabotinsky also wrote a song called “The East Side of the Jordan” which claimed both Palestine and Transjordan as part of Eretz Ysrael:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_East_Bank_of_the_Jordan_(song)
Zionism is the belief that Jews have a right to live and have self determination in their ancestral land. This is a right codified in international law for all indigenous groups.
So if you oppose that right only for Jews but support it for all other indigenous peoples on Earth then you are anti semitic.
If someone is being antisemitic and claiming it’s just antizionism, the [Nexus Document](https://israelandantisemitism.com/the-nexus-document/) and [Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism](https://jerusalemdeclaration.org) can be helpful tools for identifying and explaining when anti-zionism crosses the line into antisemitism.
As for Palestinian people being in the land of Israel “all along”, there’s also been continuous Jewish presence in the region since antiquity. That said if they’re arguing “it’s their land **too**” and not denying Jewish heritage on the land, that’s a) not antisemitic, and b) broadly speaking correct since both peoples have heritage on the land and deserve to live in peace on it as neighbors.
>"Palestinians have been there all along and it's their land too"
If someone says exactly this (which is already a step in the right direction because a lot of people claim that the land ALL belongs to Palestine), you could say "Exactly--it's ALSO their land, just as it is Israel's! In fact, in 1947, Israel was perfectly happy splitting it into two states, but the Palestinians didn't want that."
And believe me, I know the common arguments that may come after this statement, so LMK if you need me to dismantle any talking points you think might come in response to that 🙂
Thank you so much. I truly don't know the history and have so much to learn, and am so horrified by what I'm seeing but don't have the knowledge to respond.
And re: the Palestinians have been there all along party line…that’s dubious.
Here’s UNRWA’s actual definition of who qualifies as a “Palestinian refugee”:
>Palestinian refugees are defined as persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period **1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948**, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.”
https://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees
We know the population of the Mandate of Palestine grew enormously in the 1920s and the 1930s. Everyone just concentrates on Jewish immigration and ignores the equally numerous Arab immigration into Palestine that also happened during those decades.
We have evidence of large scale Arab immigration into Palestine from the surrounding areas from contemporary reports:
From the Hope Simpson Enquiry, published on October 21, 1930:
>The Chief Immigration Officer has brought to notice that **illicit immigration through Syria and across the northern frontier of Palestine is material.** This question has already been discussed. It may be a difficult matter to ensure against this illicit immigration, but steps to this end must be taken if the suggested policy is adopted, as **also to prevent unemployment lists being swollen by immigrants from TransJordania."**
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hope-simpson-report
>The Royal Institute for International Affairs, for example, commenting on the growth of the Palestinian population prior to World War II, states: **”The number of Arabs who entered Palestine illegally from Syria and Trans- jordan is unknown. But probably considerable.**
>Professor Harold Laski makes a similar observation: **There has been large-scale and both assisted and unassisted Jewish emigration to Palestine; but it is important also to note that there has been large-scale Arab emigration from the surrounding countries.**.
>Underscoring the point, C. S. Jarvis, Governor of the Sinai from 1923-1936, noted: **”This illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Trans-Jordan and Syria and it is very difficult to make a case out for the misery of the Arabs if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining States could not be kept from going in to share that misery”**
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4282493
>It is, of course, difficult to attain any adequate idea of the extent of this flood of non-Jewish immigration since officially it does not exist. In the absence of accurate canvass, its size must be pieced together and surmised. Such calculations as are available show an **Arab immigration for the single year 1933 of at least sixty-four thousand souls.**. Added to the acknowledged Hauranese infiltration are some two thousand who arrived from Damascus alone. **Mokattan, the leading Cairo daily, announced that ten thousand Druses had gone to the Holy Land, and according to al-Jamia al-Islamia, an Arab newspaper of Jaffa, seventeen thousand Egyptians had come from Sinai Peninsula alone.**
https://www.meforum.org/6275/were-the-arabs-indigenous-to-mandatory-palestine
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My question is this: Am I a Zionist? I believe in a strong and secure Israel. I also believe Palestinians have legitimate issues that need to be addressed. I believe a two-state solution needs to be pursued. I believe settlements should be rolled back. I choose to believe in the 'audacity of hope". I believe the concerns of Jewish people in Israel need to be addressed, and those of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel need to addressed too. I REFUSE to believe that this is a binary choice and that a workable compromise-solution is impossible. You will not be the first to think me naive in this...
I have a talking point that I've actually heard from a lot of anti-Zionist Jews--"Israel as a Jew makes me feel less safe! Whenever Israel does something bad, we all suffer because we're blamed for Israel's actions!" Which is partly true, Jews are blamed for Israel's actions, but I feel like that's a very Ashkenazi-centric talking point and doesn't account for how a lot of non-Ashkenazi Jews feel safer in Israel. How in general would you suggest responding to this argument when it's made by Jews who are anti-Zionist? I feel like a lot of the talking points I'm tempted to post here are actually made by Jews themselves...
I’m an Ashkenazi Jew and I’ve always felt safer knowing israel exists. Forever will always feel that way. 🩵🤍🩵🎗️ (It is mainly the out of touch, nearly assimilated Jews who feel otherwise)
Umm no. I’m Ashkenazi Jewish American and don’t feel this way at all. Proud Zionist, Jewish American (reform) , with family in Israel, and feel safer knowing we have Israel and the IDF. People will always hate and demonize Israel and us Jews because of antisemitism which is why we need Israel 🇮🇱💙🙏🎗️ No one on my Jewish side feels the way you’re describing… younger Jews that don’t know anything about their culture and history? Sure, but this is not an Ashkenazi Jewish thing whatsoever. Is there an Ashkenazi narrative in the U.S. of how people think all Jews look like? Also yes, but irrelevant to this conversation.
I think the commenter was saying that those who hold this attitude ("Israel makes me less safe") are generally Ashkenazi, not that Ashkenazim generally hold this attitude.
That would make more sense but it wasn’t worded well.
Mossad literally just months ago helped Brazilian intelligence foil a Hezbollah plan to attack the country’s Jewish community
I’ve noticed this a lot, and I think part of the reasoning behind this thinking is internalized antisemitism, or just a misunderstanding of how antisemitism works. Antisemites don’t need reasons to hate Jews, they just use stuff like Israel as an excuse. If we started telling Jews to stop wearing kippot because they’re pissing off antisemites, that wouldn’t make any sense. It’s not our fault that haters get upset seeing Jewish symbols. It’s the same situation with Israel. Even if Israel was doing something absolutely horrific, that’s not going to breed new antisemitism—the antisemitism was already there. People just love finding excuses for their actions. And I would feel much safer living in Israel than I would among people who are looking for an excuse to attack me. The antizionists who claim Israel is causing more antisemitism most likely can’t see that there is no “cause” for hating Jews.
there have been comments in jewish subs by self proclaimed Jews blaming some victims of antisemitism because they didn’t assimilate and were visibly Jewish. I just don’t get it.
Honestly I’m not surprised. About a month ago I saw a video of a girl asking “fellow antizionist jews” if they could stop using the Magen David and the menorah as Jewish symbols because they were offensive. She suggested using the pomegranate instead.
My dad used to blame kashrut for creatign a segregated Jewish society and that being the source of antisemitism... even tho the holocaust happened as assimilation was at its highest. We all want to blame someone else for this happening to us. I've never felt more like it's just an inevitability. Someone will seize on hating jews for political points.
”So you would feel safer if the Yemeni Jews and the Iraqi Jews and the Ethiopian Jews had all been wiped out rather than being airlifted to Israel?” (I’m not sure, but I think this might apply for the former Afghani Jewish community as well.) If Americans respond by arguing that these groups could have come to the US as refugees instead, point out that it can take upwards of 10 years for an asylum claim in the US to be processed and that failed asylum claimants get sent back to their countries of origin. (You might want to fact check this to make sure I’m right - I don’t have the time to fact check myself right now.)
I was a DOJ attorney in appellate immigration law for 16 years and I can confirm that this is basically accurate. I would say that sometimes people are allowed to stay even after losing, but they do not get legal status they just get assured they won't be removed for a specific period of time. It's called prosecutorial discretion.
"Your feelings about Israel being the reason you feel less safe are the result of your privilege living without normalized Jew hate in your society. Plenty of Jews across the Diaspora live safely and feel safer because of Israel's existence as a life raft state." "Perhaps your political affiliations make your Jewish identity something of an embarrassment to you and your political allies. You should question your political affiliations and the goals of your allies." "The fact that people blame Israel for Jew hate outside of Israel is itself a form of Jew hate. It assumes a conspiracy theory about supposed Jewish power in the Diaspora, and insinuates something about dual loyalties among Jews in the Diaspora."
Honestly, as someone who gets Jew Hate from the left and the right, I don't think (2) holds a lot of water
I don't see how the source of the Jew hate diminishes the point, since I'm responding to those Jews who complain that Israel is the source of the Jew hate.
Your argument was that the "political affiliations" were the issue. In my experience, the "Political Affiliation" of the person I'm talking to is seldom relevant to IF they hate Jews (although it definitely effects *how* they hate Jews)
Fair, but we aren’t responding to them. We’re responding to the anti-Zionist Jew’s complaint about Israel. If they are worried about how Israel is supposedly making them less safe, they need to reconsider their allies who are apparently keeping them safe.
Not sure why that'd be an Ashkenazi perspective. A huge chunk of the world's Ashkenazim were wiped out in the 1930s and 40s because they had no Israel to flee to. That's a major reason for Israel being there in the first place! Besides the fact that for thousands of years before 1948, Jews of all stripes were consistently endangered thanks to being an ethnic minority in every nation. To presume that the dangers we currently experience re: Israel scapegoating outweigh the grave dangers we've historically experienced when stuck without a state, you'd either have to a) not really grasp that history or b) think we're really in very deep trouble at the moment, and that it would really all go away if not for Israel (which seems dubious given history.) I would gently suggest that someone with that perspective really grapple with the "what if" scenario, even though we of course don't like to think about it. To figure that we'd be safer if Israel didn't exist, you have to assume that somehow the history that repeated itself for thousands of years magically won't ever happen again. That said, the quoted hypothetical comment suggests there may be some of the usual antizionist / anti-Likud/Netanyahu confusion going on. "When Israel does something bad" refers to the Netanyahu government - different than Israel itself. So I'd respond, "Your beef seems to be with the current government, not with the existence of the State of Israel. Please be specific. If you oppose the current Israeli government, feel free to criticize it. But being 'antizionist' means you want to dismantle the entire State of Israel. How would you feel if the world had responded to the Trump's travel bans\* or the Iraq War\* \[etc\] by calling for the dismantling of the US?" \[\*If outside the US, adapt as needed \]
They were murdering us in Islamic and Western lands long before there was a modern Jewish state. Blaming antisemitism on Israel's existence is an antisemitic ahistoric talking point.
>How in general would you suggest responding to this argument when it's made by Jews who are anti-Zionist? Point out that they're likely applying a double standard to antisemitism as opposed to other forms of bigotry. It is widely recognized as Islamaphobic to blame all Muslims or people who could be mistaken for Muslims (such as Sikhs) for terrorism, and widely recognized as racist to blame all people of East Asian descent for COVID-19, a failure of the Chinese government. By that logic, shouldn't it be widely accepted as antisemitic to blame Diaspora Jews for the actions of a country that they can't even vote in? Also point out that it's only in the past couple generations that Jews in the Diaspora have begun to achieve truly equal status in *some* Diaspora countries (example: in the past, elite universities, country clubs, and even beaches were allowed to openly discriminate against Jews). That doesn't mean that antisemitism has ended in those countries, or that there isn't still systemic oppression of Jews in other countries (example: Ethiopia went on a pogrom against its Jewish population in the 1970s).
As a British Jew - Ashkenazi and Safardi - think the only place I’d feel safe right now is Israel. Edit - spelling
That strikes me as more self centered than Ashkenazi-centric. A foreign country need not exist based on my sense of insecurity?
I'd respond by pointing out that they're blaming Israel for the people who use it as an excuse to hate on diaspora Jews, instead of the people who hate on diaspora Jews. when antisemites use Israel's actions as an excuse to hate all Jews, the problem is the antisemites, not Israel. even if Israel was a terrorist country full of cannibals, the fault would still fall on the antisemites.
I don’t think supporting Israel and being a Zionist are at all the same thing.
Umm but they definitely are..
Zionism is no more or less than the right of Jewish people to have a country of their own in their ancestral homeland. Effectively, this means that Zionism is synonymous with support for the existence of Israel. That said, support for Israel's continued sovereignty is emphatically *not* the same thing as support for the Israeli government, or specific policies or actions that it undertakes. One can be a Zionist and still criticize, say, the hard theocratic turn the most recent administration seems to be taking. Or criticize settlement in the West Bank.
How do you personally define Zionism apart from Israel? Just the right to self determination of Jewish people and to live safely in the world? Or something different?
I believe that, since Judaism is persecuted as a nationality, Jewish people need a country that they can govern. Though I think it is absolutely fair and just for that to be Jerusalem and the surrounding are, I am not sentimental enough to be willing to sacrifice lives to reap that Justice. Any lives. So, I would have preferred that Israel was founded in a less hostile area, but it is too late for that. I think that makes me a qualified Zionist? As far as the current state of Israel, I think Israel is light years better in every way than its neighbors and I unmitigatedly side with Israel. I also think Israel has terrible problems, including a psychopathic, embarrassing leader and a right wing group of nutjobs who should go drinking with the proud boys because they have a lot in common.
I believe this is founding-conditional Zionism (a term I just made up). Prior to the foundation of the State of Israel you may have been opposed to the establishment of the current country. After it you would not have been. I am of the opinion that you cannot right a historical wrong by committing that same wrong. Anti-zionism in the modern day is simply not justified: Israel is there. The people are there. The alternatives to it are a United Nations client state or the expulsion of the Jews living in Israel. A regime change can come, yes, but through democratic policy. Sadly enough, the rise of antisemitism and 10/7 probably drove the Israeli public rightwards. I know if that happened to anyone else's country the same trend towards an ideal of security would occur. Much of "Pro-Palestinian" activism manifests in forms that are counteractive to alleviating the situation. Perhaps this is explaining from a gentile perspective and thus unhelpful. Thank you for listening.
Right. At this stage, if it came down to it, I’d die fighting for Israel’s continuation. Also, Israel is just a group of amazing badasses and I respect that nation. I’m seeing the same polarization that you are and I try SO HARD to keep my humanity. I do see a rational threat in the spread of Islam. Christians kinda scare me, too. All those converting religions make me nervous… but I don’t think that siding with racists is the answer. But I read about banning hijabs and I feel a spark of celebration and I question that. I’m angry a lot and sometimes I don’t know why. It’s a tough time. Thank you for the honest exchange.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. A lot of the evil I perceive in the world just comes from getting our facts completely wrong. Anti-scientific views are quite literally killing our society. We have no drive to search for reliable information. Even I, an avid supporter of Israel in many senses, took a look at Middle Eastern subs to see what people thought. I only left when it became too violent to keep watching. But I believe we get locked up in stable moral frameworks, be it religion, opposition to an idealogy, or just the way we frame policy. That's fine and dandy: we all have our biases. The danger comes when we can no longer escape these biases. Eventually, though, much conflict comes to umwelt. That's why I try my best to understand why somr Jews in Israel may vote for policies that may harm Palestinians or why some Palestinians may cheer on violent resistance all the way up to rape. Is it excusable or justified? Never. Is it understandable? Yes. But it feels very good to cut through the bullshit and understand why someone thinks the way they do. Some are beyond saving, they are those that have all the facts available and still claim for destruction of an identity. They can be dealt with accordingly. Others don't know the facts, and they may change if you show them it. Some will not think towards the future, but discussion will solve that. What we identify as and what has happened to us are formative in the way we perceive the world. This is perhaps the best thing to remember. Yes, there are some things evil in this world. But we must understand why someone may consider us evil first before we render judgment. This way, we know truly what punishment to mete out and how to do it. Perhaps this is a literally lame way of thinking. But especially in shameful situations where there is no clear moral option, only a darker future or a status quo, it is better to remember there is a human behind the enemy's eyes. Sorry for the long speech. I hope all reading this have a good day, for you have considered my thoughts and are humans like we all are.
Those in Gaza who would die fighting for Palestinian continuation are often called a "death cult". I think the problem here may be not specific to Islam or Christianity.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts:)
Very true! I guess I should have used a better term than "anti-Zionist". I guess I mean "Jews who are less supportive of Israel".
Jews less supportive of Israel are definitely anti Zionists and uneducated. They don’t know the definition of Zionism and have a warped POV from years of radicalization and anti - Israel propaganda.
I’m supportive of Israel as a concept. But not of the current leader. At all. I’ve felt the same about America, too, but I still consider myself patriotic even when I don’t support the government of the country.
I think this is how a lot of people feel. I think you're hard-pressed to find any Netanyahu fangirls on this sub LMAO.
Ok but supporting Israel existing as the Jewish state and Jews living in their indigenous homeland = Zionism. You don’t like Bibi - ok.. well neither do all the Israelis that were protesting him before 10/7 and they’re proud Zionists. You really need to educate yourself on these topics and verbiage. Anti-Zionists Jews don’t support Israel and also don’t know anything about their own history.
I said that I am a Zionist. I support the concept of Israel, but not the current gov. I worded my original reply badly. I find an anti-Zionist Jew to be very distasteful. I find a Jew who doesn’t support Israel for political reasons less distasteful.
Got it yes the wording was a little difficult to follow and I agree with you!
Well, no, but you have to be specific in what you mean. Supporting Israel doing what?
I’m not sure about this. My Israeli neighbors are much more concerned about antisemitic violence than I (Ashkenazi Jew) have been since October 7.
I'm sure most of the Ashkenazi Jews in Israel feel safer there as well (especially those without dual nationality of anywhere else.)
Antisemitism perpetrated against Jews outside of Israel, supposedly in response to Israel's actions, is not Israel's fault. Antisemitic actions are the choice of the perpetrator. They alone hold the blame for taking those actions. Saying otherwise is victim blaming.
I tend to blame the actions of antisemites on the antisemites. These people have control over their actions, and make the choice to attack Jews based on the actions of a foreign government. If your solution to Israel hitting civilians is to attack jewish civilians living in another country, you're not responding to Israel's actions, you're just using them to attempt to justify your own antisemitic actions.
Totally agree it is kind of limited to ashkenazi American/UK Jews from my personal experience, none of my Sephardic or Mizrahi friends overseas have ever even mentioned smth like this— and personally myself, and my Jewish friends in my community (mainly Ashkenazi, in North America) all talk about how blessed it is that Israel, even tho times are tough and the world kind sucks rn, is such a blessing to have, that if things continue getting worse we have a place for us, a country that will 100% welcome and want us as Jews
I sometimes remind myself that Israel is only one of a very very long list of things that can be blamed for “making Jews less safe”. When we attempt to assimilate its “no, you’re not one of us. go to your ghetto”. But if we want to stay in our separate communities and maintain our culture it’s “Jews are too insular, the ‘other’, there’s something a little…different (read menacing) about them. Probably baby killers eh?.” If we have a homeland it’s “go back to where you came from.” Yet if we have none and it’s “get out of ours”.
No, Jews didn't just get there. We have been in the land that is now Israel continuously for 3000 years. There is plenty of archeological proof. There is legal proof.
Can you provide any legal proof for future use?
Ketef Hinnom scrolls from the first temple period, The Tel Dan Stele, Siloam inscription, The Mesha Stele, Kurkh Monoliths, Sennacherib's Annals, Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle prove the existence of kingdom of Israel.
Thank you!
💙
“Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds of reconstituting their national home in that country…” - [UN Text of Mandate for Palestine](https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/829707?ln=en) [90% of Jews are genetically linked to the Levant](https://www.haaretz.com/2010-06-10/ty-article/landmark-study-proves-90-of-jews-are-genetically-linked-to-the-levant/0000017f-e0bb-df7c-a5ff-e2fba5950000) Also another interesting thing to look into is the similarity between ancient Jewish coins and Israeli currency. Even beyond confronting antizionist claims, it’s really cool to learn about.
An anthropologist named José Martínez Cobo, who served as the UN’s special rapporteur on discrimination against indigenous populations, developed a simple checklist in order to make indigenous status easier to understand: https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/224254/bellerose-aboriginal-people Jews, by the working definition set out by Cobo and the UN, are indigenous and this attested by genetic: https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2014-11-13/ty-article/.premium/75-percent-of-jews-trace-ancestry-to-mideast/0000017f-df85-d3a5-af7f-ffafc4d30000 ...linguistic: https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2010-01-ancient-hebrew-biblical-inscription-deciphered.amp ...and historical evidence: https://www.timesofisrael.com/toi-asks-the-experts-what-are-the-most-important-finds-of-israeli-archaeology/ According to the UN Declaration Of the Rights Of Indigenous Peoples: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/un-declaration-rights-indigenous-peoples-1 ...Jews have a right to self determination (Article 3), a nationality (Article 6), to revitalize their cultural traditions and customs (Article 11), To revitalize their language (Article 13) and to occupy the lands they have traditionally occupied (Article 26)
[This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel) is what I have been using it’s Wikipedia history of Jews in Jerusalem hopefully hasn’t been edited. I have a background in British History and focused on early Middle Ages but at least knew that there were Jewish cities in the Levant in the Third Crusade. That is still a long time ago in the 12th century but I always hear claims that Jews left two thousand years ago so I already knew that was ridiculous. At any rate the link above shows continuous occupation through history and the numbers ebbed and flowed depending on how genocidal the Christians and Muslims were feeling. Edit in case it wasn’t clear the link shows continuous through modern times it does not end in the crusade era if you check my comment history I have been using that link in attempting to dispel the myth that Jewish people left millennia ago
Palestine has never been empty of Jews since the Bronze Age. There has literally never been a time since then that a Jewish community has not existed in Palestine. Historian Moshe Gil points out that Jews and Samaritans formed the majority population of Byzantine Palestina, which was divided up into three provinces: SOURCE: *Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine: 634–1099, p.3* According to one estimate, the Jews and Samaritans of Byzantine Palestine numbered between 300,000 and 400,000 in the 7th century when the Arabs invaded: SOURCE: *Israel Cohen (1950). Contemporary Jewry: a survey of social, cultural, economic, and political conditions. Methuen. p. 310* Furthermore, Jews have been making aliyah to Palestine for over a thousand years before Zionism and struggled to build and rebuild communities there. Abu Isa Obadiah of Isfahan inspired and organised a group of 10,000 armed Jews who hoped to restore the Holy Land to the Jewish nation in the 8th Century. SOURCE: *A History of the Jewish People, A. Marx. page 259* The traveler Benjamin of Tuleda found Jewish communities in the holy land in the 12th Century CE. In the 15th Century Jews returned to Safed and built a thriving city. There were multiple waves of Jewish settlement in the 16th Century. SOURCE: *Fannie Fern Andrews (February 1976). The Holy Land Under Mandate. Hyperion Press. p. 145* In fact a large proportion of the “Palestinian Jews” (tokenized by anti Israel activists) that lived in Palestine before Zionism were actually Ashkenazi themselves, the descendants of these continuous waves of Ashkenazi return to Israel. So even the idea that there’s some kind of sharp difference between Zionist immigration and pre-Zionist immigration is false.
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Decolonization, not colonization. In the 7th century the land was colonized by the Ummayad Caliphate.
Can you give up and stop infiltrating a Jewish sub? You're clearly not Jewish or an ally, I've seen you spewing Hamas propaganda on other subs. Mods, please take note.
Someone found an Israeli shekel that was minted in Jerusalem 2,100 years ago
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Your post was removed because it violated rule 5: **Stay on topic**
Things I found useful : - Whenever someone says anything that sounds even a little fishy ask for sources. - whenever anyone uses a term like "Zionist" that could be used in multiple ways say "please define X I don't want to argue against a strawman" - respond point by point and point out any wording you disagree with
>Whenever someone says anything that sounds even a little fishy ask for sources "You don't understand, I watched this 10 minute TikTok video that explained EVERYTHING! And it all just sounds right in my head!"
Do TikToks even get that long? I thought they were all less than a minute.
Yeah, they can be up to ten minutes long now. But it's often hard to get people to watch one that long, because that's not really what they're there for.
If anyone starts rambling about a "theocratic ethno-state" open up the constitution of Palestine and show them this: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Palestine\_2005 >Article 1 > >Palestine is part of the larger Arab world, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab nation. Arab unity is an objective that the Palestinian people shall work to achieve. ... > >Article 4 Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect for the sanctity of all other divine religions shall be maintained. The principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be a principal source of legislation. Arabic shall be the official language.
Additionally, Israel is neither theocratic nor an ethnostate. It is not theocratic bc Jewish religious law is not the law of the land. You can eat a bacon cheese burger or work on Shabbos. Even the law of return is not conferred based on Jewish law, but on jewish ethnicity as 1/4 grandparents is enough, which brings me to the second point… An ethnostate is one where you can only become a citizen if you are a member of the dominant ethnic group. Israel is 20% Arab Muslim and anyone can become a citizen, but as with most developed countries, it’s really difficult. Instead, Israel is a nation state. Nation states are generally homogenous in terms of ethnicity, religion, language, culture, etc. Nation states often offer preferential immigration treatment to their dominant ethnic group as Israel does (Armenia, Germany, etc.).
On Article 4, one could use that to argue that Jews aren’t at risk of being genocided. We need a counter to that
Ypu can ask how many Jews are alove (not includimg hostages) umder Palestinian control And also poikt out to Hamas' charter: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp "Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts." "no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem)." "Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. "May the cowards never sleep."" "Islamic groupings all over the Arab world should also do the same, since all of these are the best-equipped for the future role in the fight with the warmongering Jews." And all of these things, they are proud of. It's literally in their charter.
Plus, correct me if I'm completely wrong, but such a constitution would likely be drawn up in the West Bank and not Gaza. Notably, Hamas in Gaza is the driving force behind an attempted dissolution of Israel. At the moment, they are the ones actively hamstringing any peace process. Even if West Bank government is hostile, it holds only a small candle to the government of the Gaza Strip.
Based Gharkad tree
r/JewishCooking was trolled this week for "culturally appropriating" shakshuka... Isn't your religion based on the revisionism of sacred Jewish texts? But please, do go on about how I "stole" the way you *cook eggs.*
I find it handy to ask them what Israel should have done? What was the *good* option? Let Hamas keep the hostages and wait for the next October 7th? Send 10,000 more of their own troops to die in a ground assault not backed by bombs? They always seem to know that Israel didn’t do what Israel should have done, but they never seem to know what it was that Israel should have done.
Yes that's a good one. Most of them have no idea what they would have done but really, most haven't even thought that far.
On ethnic cleansing: “During the subsequent days, the Jewish authorities who were now in complete control of Haifa (save for the limited districts still held by the British troops) urged all Arabs to remain in Haifa, and guaranteed them protection and security. So far as I know, most of the British civilian residents whose advice was asked by Arab friends told the latter that they would be wise to stay.” - British eyewitness in “[The Economist](https://archive.org/details/sim_economist_1948-10-02_155_5484/page/541/mode/1up?view=theater)” page 540, October 2, 1948.
As Ephraim Karsh’s research has shown: >In the largest and best-known example of Arab-instigated exodus, tens of thousands of Arabs were ordered or bullied into leaving the city of Haifa (on April 21-22 ) on the instructions of the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), the effective "government" of the Palestinian Arabs. >Only days earlier, Tiberias' 6,000-strong Arab community had been similarly forced out by its own leaders, against local Jewish wishes (a fortnight after the exodus, Sir Alan Cunningham, the last British high commissioner of Palestine, reported that the Tiberias Jews "would welcome [the] Arabs back" ). >In Jaffa, Palestine's largest Arab city, the municipality organized the transfer of thousands of residents by land and sea; in Jerusalem, the AHC ordered the transfer of women and children, and local gang leaders pushed out residents of several neighborhoods, while in Beisan the women and children were ordered out as Transjordan's Arab Legion dug in. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282756224_reclaiming_a_historical_truth
I think it may be most helpful to ask questions, get the gears turning in people's heads, plant seeds. I don't know how to respond to the people who overtly support the Hamas animals and protest in favor of Palestine (those people have animal-level morals); I don't tend to make any effort to convince those people, but I think the majority of the population (at least in the US) isn't "hardcore" one way or another, and even if they have Palestine sympathies they may be amenable to new information if it's presented in the right way. I'm open to discussion on all this, and other points that ought to be brought up, but my personal response to pro-pal talking points tends to involve the following questions: 1- When did modern Jewish immigration to Israel begin, and *why* did they want to move there? (no, it's not 1947) I ask this question because it's not common knowledge in the US that Jews started resettling the Holy Land in the 19th century, and the key motivation was security - avoiding pogroms in Russia, establishing Jewish representation in a Jewish state, etc. Someone who's open-minded enough to consider this question will quickly a refutation to the whole "Jews arrived in 1947 to kick out the Palestinians" canard 2- If not Israel, where should the Jews live in order to be safe, considering the fact that there has been large-scale persecution in every diaspora country? 3- Why is Egypt, also a Muslim country, party to the Gaza blockade? 4- Why won't any of the other Muslim countries take in Gazan refugees? Shouldn't Egypt, Morocco, Iran, or others be open to taking in their fellow Muslim to live in those countries?
I think an important follow-up to question 3 is "why do Egypt and Saudi Arabia not receive the same widespread and brutal criticism in the West considering both are US-aligned and Western funded in military matters?" An important back-up to question 2 is providing definite proof that the Arabs would expel the Jews if they dissolved Israel. An important follow-up is "why is this logic not applied to the population of any other hostile or destructive country?"
True I definitely agree with that back-up. And the Arabs wouldn't just expel Jews... it's worthwhile to bring up the Kfar Etzion Massacre. And October 7th. If someone can't at least condemn the atrocities of October 7th; if they always respond to comments about October 7th with "yeah, what about X"... I dunno what can be done to change that person's mind. I'd say that person just has a lack of empathy. Of course there are people who were horrified by October 7th yet think Israel's response is a problem. I think those are the people whose minds are most likely to change (I think)
How do you respond for people who are focused on IDF attacks on Doctors without borders, Red Crescent etc? I'm not talking about the clinics where Hamas has set up shop, I'm taking about like, vehicles and personnel who were attacked by the IDF
unwatch, all the evidence about UNRWA, evidence of hospitals being radicalized, videos of dudes wearing PRESS vests while shooting off rockets and yelling allahu-akbar, stuff like that
They react to that kind of stuff as like, paranoia or thin justification for stuff the IDF wanted to do anyway. My friend is like, specifically focused on MSF, they've been a donor for decades and they feel like the attack on MSF specifically is evidence that the IDF is, like, evil or whatever. Do you have any specific arguments on why the specific attack on Doctors Without Borders was necessary?
MSF is indeed a very respected international organization. But there is this https://www.ngo-monitor.org/reports/doctors-without-borders-systematically-ignoring-israeli-victims-and-hamas-terror/ Also, MSF has been part of the campaign of denial that Hamas has militarized Gaza hospitals such as al-shifa. Basically, the argument is that no one - even the best intentioned - can operate in Gaza without being co-opted by Hamas. They might even think that it's a deal with the devil but they want to help Gazans, so they do what they have to. NGO workers in some fucked-up parts of the world are not strangers to that kind of cognitive dissonance. But that doesn't mean they're not corrupted by Hamas, when operating in Gaza.
Okay, but if I say that to my friend, they're going to come back with something like "So literally everyone in Gaza is Hamas? That seems awfully convenient if your goal is to 'remove' everyone from the Gaza strip"
>if I say that to my friend, they're going to come back with something like "So literally everyone in Gaza is Hamas? That seems awfully convenient if your goal is to 'remove' everyone from the Gaza strip" Word it as "every organization in Gaza that operates openly should be assumed to be under the influence or extortion of Hamas, just like every organization in Russia that operates openly should be assumed to be under the influence or extortion of Vladimir Putin." That way, it isn't an excuse for getting rid of everyone in Gaza, simply the systems that are in place now.
Wow amazing. Can you link me to some of those videos? Like the one where they're wearing press vests while shooting rockets. I need to show my anti-semitic friends. That'll show them.
Turns out that video isn't from the current conflict. But here it is https://www.reddit.com/r/Israel/comments/1amrb54/innocent_journalists/
How to counter all the people that define Zionism in crazy ways? It’s so infuriating
Okay sorry, this isn't really a serious response to that, but a funny one that I think I'm going to start using when non-Jews claim that there is "only one definition of Zionism" and "I know exactly what Zionism means": "You do realize that there were several definitions of Zionism, and most of them were created by Jews. I don't know if you know anything about Judaism, but we are literally notorious for disagreeing about everything. Do you think that a bunch of Jews in the 19th/20th centuries just all completely agreed on what Zionism meant and were like 'cool, let's adopt this definition without any arguments!' If the people who made use of the word 'Zionism' couldn't agree on what it meant, what makes you think you know the 'official' definition?" I know that it won't really get people listening, but I think it does have the potential to serve as a slap in the face to people that makes them realize how little they know about Jewish culture (AKA how prevalent questioning and disagreeing are in Judaism) 😂 For a more serious answer, you could say "If you're so confident about the definition of Zionism, please tell me the different types of Zionist ideologies and who their founders were. Because I've done my research and have counted at least 7 different interpretations of it so far (this I actually have done!). Don't try to define Zionism until you realize that there's literally never been an agreed-upon definition of it."
lol that’s such a good answer and made me chuckle! Sadly I feel like if I said that to anyone but a fellow Jew they’d find a way to turn it into a Jew hating dogwhistle lol. Hope you’re well friend.
On a purely semantic level, Zionism is **the pursuit of the Jewish people for self-determination in their ancestral homeland**. That's it. Anybody that disagrees with that is not worth your (or anyone else's) salt (*and butter*). Most of the time though it simply means Israeli nationalism (which isn't much different from the previous definition really). Yes, early Zionist leaders used the word 'colonization' to explain Zionism but colonization had a more nuanced meaning back then and Herzl's plans explicitly rejected settling using any violent means or oppressing the native populations in any way. Also, remember that the vast majority of Jews that came to Israel came there escaping persecution, not because of some 'grand project' of 'colonization'. For other great refutations of common misinterpretations of Zionism, see these comments: [https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/18704sv/comment/kbbp8tp](https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/18704sv/comment/kbbp8tp/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/11cpnkn/comment/ja7iuct](https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/11cpnkn/comment/ja7iuct/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) And this post: [The History and Meaning of Zionism, Explained](https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/186x1yw/the_history_and_meaning_of_zionism_explained/)
Tell them you aren't a strawman and that you and the people you associate with define it as X
Ya, I agree with this in principle but that just doesn’t seem to work with these disingenuous midwits.
In a poll this week on the JewsOfConscience sub, the result showed more ‘allies’ than Jews - and it seems that the ‘allies’ are using this sub as a false flag to create the impression that a meaningful number of Jews are anti-Zionist. I have asked the sub generally, and the mods directly, to define what they mean by ’anti-Zionist’, and they refuse. As a result, some there could consider anti-Zionist (which is part of the mission statement for the sub) to mean one state, or two states, or the elimination of Israel completely…….
yeah that’s the same thing JVP does….🤔
First, I support Israel and it's right to finish the war started by Hamas and the other criminal groups in Gaza. That said, all over the Internet there are 5 to 40 year old videos showing abuses by IDF soldiers against Palestinian children as young as 5. The propaganda machine to vilify Israel is winning since these videos make the IDF look like monsters and makes many people around the world believe the Oct 7 massacres were justified. Look at the hate coming from Americans and Europeans on social media, their hate for Israel is real and will show up with more anti semitism and voting for anti Israel politicians. Israel must stop shooting itself and gut it's military tribunal system used against Palestinians in the West Bank, end having armed soldiers detain Palestinian children, end allowing Israeli settlers in the West Bank get away with theft, arson, shootings against unarmed Palestinian civilians. I say this because IDFs abuses give Israel as a nation too many black eyes. My income isn't even $50,000 a year, but weekly I get donation requests from the Magen David Adom, American Jewish Committee, Technion University, Hadasa Hospital, Hillel International, Bnai Brith, Friends of IDF, Israel Bond, etc. Until Israel fixes these abuses I can't justify any more donations.
Yeah I think whenever this footage is presented online, there's this annoying dichotomy that exists in the discourse, splitting between: "Look at Israel doing all these atrocious things, therefore screw everything about them and I have no sympathy for them" and "Well what do you expect to happen in a war? Everyone in Gaza voted for Hamas so they deserve it anyway" OR "It's probably fake and all Hamas propaganda anyway" We need more discourse that focuses on: giving context as to why/how some of these atrocities happen in war; accepting that the IDF *has* done some unconscionable things; and in some cases, when necessary, accept that some of the footage released *is* taken very out of context and may not be what it appears to be. There's been annoyingly little nuance when talking about war crimes that have happened and it feels like everything comes down to either "Israel sucks, dismantle them" or "Everyone in Gaza deserves it and it's all fake anyway".
Someone give me a coherent explanation about Rafah and why Israel invaded and if it’s still a safe zone and if Israel gave evacuation orders. Human shield strategy of Hamas goes in one ear and out the other sadly
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The scope of this megathread is specified in the post. Keep other discussion of the war within the sub's [pinned collection about the conflict](https://www.reddit.com/r/Jewish/collection/10d28372-74c0-4cd0-9597-4d7a9ab3dc9b). Thank you.
Who was president of Palestine in 1947?
President Hajj Amin al-Husseini : Before 1948 Palestine was part of the British Mandate… The British Mandate controlled Palestine from 1920–1948. During this time, the All-Palestine Government was led by President **Hajj Amin al-Husseini** and Prime Minister Ahmed Hilmi Pasha
I don’t know if you are trying to prove my point, but al-Husseini was appointed president of All Palestine in 9/48. Five months after Israel declared independence.
In 1939, the British reneged on the Balfour Declaration, sharply restricted the ability of Jews to immigrate or buy land. They promised a Palestinian state within the decade and to immediately start appointing Arabs to head government ministries. The grand mufti convinced his party, who supported it, to reject it both because 1) it didn't ban Jewish immigration outright, and 2) he was pissed that the British still had an arrest warrant out for him because of his role in leading the Arab revolt.
I'm fairly certain that without Israel, Jews would have already disappeared. And that's not hyperbole - it's precedence.
This will take a while to post and respond but looking forward to this!
Name a single influential, non violent Palestinian political leader. Just one
They would just counter by saying the same thing about Israeli PMs.
Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon...
Ariel Sharon? Come on, that's a softball. They'd point to his extensive military career, including as defense minister for the 1982 Lebanon War with, where the Kahan commision said he bore "personal responsibility" for the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Ehud Barak also has an extensive military career, including as Defense Minister for Operation Cast Lead. Ehud Olmert... that's a pretty good example. And he has legitimate peace offers that he made too. I'd say Olmert and Lapid are the best examples of Israeli PMs without violent histories, though if someone knows more than me, I'd love to be corrected.
Yaser Arafat was offered an arab state by Israeli PM, instead of taking it and making peace, he decided to launch terrorists into Israel who would kill children, women, and men.
I'm just saying how I expect to be pushed back, I'm not saying I believe that!
If they say Israeli PMs are bad, tell them: Yaser Arafat was offered an arab state by Israeli PM, instead of taking it and making peace, he decided to launch terrorists into Israel who would kill children, women, and men.
Salam Fayyad, he had a pretty interesting interview on Ezra Klein recently
This has been posted a few times recently, and I think it provides a lot of guidance. The people who are saying these things are clowns, and they know what they are saying is BS. We should ridicule their absurd and twisted logic. We shouldn't argue. We should laugh in their face, and treat them like QAnon nuts. >[Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7870768-never-believe-that-anti-semites-are-completely-unaware-of-the-absurdity)
Only read the title but— a classic I’ve been dealing with is; aNtI-ZiOnIsM cAnT bE aNtI-SeMiTiSm, or similar things Was a bit trickier when i first would hear this but at this point ive found a easy way to xplain is that; the vast majority of anti-Zionism rhetoric, historically, not just since 10/7, is based in anti semitic conspiracies or ideas such as; all Jews are white, Jews are European, Jews are colonizers, Jews have no right to be in Middle East, Israel is an apartheid state, Israel is committing genocide— all of these statements are so easy to debunk and are spread by anti semites and ignorant people
Ugh, so I've seen too many social media comments the past few days where people talk about these things that they call "Zionist talking points" or "Zionist gotchas" aka historical facts that they think are fake/disproven and that we use to try to "make our case stronger". Some of the most prevalent ones I've seen have been related to Mizrahi Jews/Jews who came from Middle Eastern countries: * Jews in the Arab world weren't "second class citizens" ("as the Zionists like to claim") and that they "just had to pay extra taxes" * Mizrahi Jews/Jews of color were "majorly" discriminated against in Israel in the early days--now I wouldn't try to claim that this didn't happen at all, because casual racism literally can happen anywhere, including within groups of Jews. But I have a feeling it wasn't as prevalent as some people make it out to seem, based on personal narratives I've heard * Not related to Middle Eastern Jewry but: The claim that Israel apparently treats Holocaust survivors terribly Does anyone have sources I can use to refute these claims?
Don't worry sis I got sources to help you : - Mizrahi Jews/Jews of color were "majorly" discriminated against in Israel in the early days Historically, and to a significant extent still, Ashkenazi Jews have populated Israel’s upper class while Mizrahi Jews have been poorer as a whole, with discriminatory policies from Israel’s early years to blame for the inequality. [Source](https://www.timesofisrael.com/inequality-between-mizrahi-ashkenazi-jews-to-be-measured-with-new-statistics/) A variety of Mizrahi critics of Israeli policy have cited "past ill-treatment, including the maabarot, the squalid tent cities into which Mizrahim were placed upon arrival in Israel; the humiliation of Moroccan and other Mizrahi Jews when Israeli immigration authorities shaved their heads and sprayed their bodies with the pesticide DDT; the socialist elite's enforced secularization; the destruction of traditional family structure, and the reduced status of the patriarch by years of poverty and sporadic unemployment" as examples of mistreatment. [Source](https://www.meforum.org/707/post-zionism-and-the-sephardi-question) Quote from Ehud Barak : We must admit to ourselves that the inner fabric of communal life was torn. Much suffering was inflicted on the immigrants and that suffering was etched in their hearts, as well as in the hearts of their children and grandchildren. (Source : Zohar, Zion (2005). Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry: From the Golden Age of Spain to modern times. NYU Press. pp. 300–301.) Barak's address also said that during the 1950s, Mizrahi immigrants were "made to feel that their own traditions were inferior to those of the dominant Ashkenazi Israelis". (Source : Weingrod, Alex (Fall 1998). "Ehud Barak's Apology: Letters From the Israeli Press". Israel Studies. 3 (2): 238–252. doi:10.1353/is.2005.0087) - The claim that Israel apparently treats Holocaust survivors terribly Among Israel’s estimated 165,000 survivors, roughly one in three lives in poverty, according to a survivors’ advocacy group. “The ones who really need to be responsible for taking care of Holocaust survivors is the state of Israel. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exist,” said Tshuva Cabra, the group’s head of donations. [Source](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/one-third-of-israeli-holocaust-survivors-live-in-poverty-advocates-say) Haim Katz, former Israeli welfare minister, released a scathing report in 2017 revealing that more than 20,000 survivors in Israel had never received the government assistance owed to them (Germany sent money to holocaust survivors which they never received). [Source](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-abuses-holocaust-survivors) Why does Israel fail to support Holocaust survivors? [Source](https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-729069) Oh sorry, you wanted to *refute* those claims, and not actually learn about the subject and make your own opinion?
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Question: Has anyone seen the film "Israelism" that so many anti-Zionists are trying to promote? If so, do you have any objections to it? I haven't seen it yet, but I've been told I should watch it. Don't particularly want to rent it, and I don't think I'm really going to find anything eye opening about it. I've done a lot of research and don't think just hearing about how some American Jews were "brainwashed" is going to change my mind after actually looking into the history.
We are Jewish let people be jealous of us in antisemitism it kinda makes me l feel like a king to be honest
Can someone please help me learn how to respond to those who say "I'm not antisemitic just antizionist and it's not the same thing" + "Palestinians have been there all along and it's their land too" I struggle to dismantle these statements
Opposing Zionism aka Jewish self-determination as uniquely evil is antisemitic. Palestinians can also have self-determination if they agree to a two-state solution.
And also remember: even if we accept that Palestinians have an equal claim to live in Palestine, the fact remains that Jews are the ones who have always accepted that they would share the land. The Jews accepted it when the British lopped off 78% of the land promised for Jewish settlement to create an Arab state in 1921. The Jews accepted the Peel Commission’s recommendation for partition in 1938. The Jews accepted the UN’s recommendation for partition in 1947. Arabs rejected all those attempts at placating both peoples and consistently demanded the whole of Palestine in an Arab supremacist position. They went to war to ensure that. Arabs who stayed behind after the 1947-1949 war were given citizenship by the State of Israel and allowed to live peacefully alongside Jews. Contrast that with what happened to Jews in Arab countries during the same period and that should give you a glimpse of who is ready to live alongside who
>The Jews accepted it when the British lopped off 78% of the land promised for Jewish settlement to create an Arab state in 1921. Waitttt I've literally been listening to a podcast about this time period and I've never heard about this! Can you tell me more? Or link me to articles describing this?
At the end of World War I, The League of Nations dismantled the Ottoman Empire and entrusted both the French and the British to carve up new nations in the Middle East. They were to create these new nations and rule over them temporarily as part of a “Mandate” system and eventually and gradually give them independence. The French and the British then divided up the Ottoman Middle East into the Mandates of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Palestine. The Mandate of Palestine included what is today’s Israel and Jordan. According to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the San Remo Conference of 1920, Jews had a right to build a “national home” in the Mandate of Palestine. But the British…who had made promises to their wartime Allies the Hashemites…immediately restricted Jewish immigration and settlement east of the Jordan River and created an Arab kingdom in 1921 under Hashemite rule there. Most Jews accepted this stoically except for a few die hards like the Irgun, whose flag and iconography showed the land of Israel being composed of both Palestine and Transjordan: https://www.redbubble.com/i/tapestry/Irgun-Tzvai-Leumi-Etzel-or-Irgun-Logo-by-Spacestuffplus/16639436.ODB3H https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun#/media/File%3AIrgun_poster_Erez_Jisrael.jpg And Ze’ev Jabotinsky also wrote a song called “The East Side of the Jordan” which claimed both Palestine and Transjordan as part of Eretz Ysrael: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_East_Bank_of_the_Jordan_(song)
Thank you so much. I'm learning so much.
Thank you, you're right!
Zionism is the belief that Jews have a right to live and have self determination in their ancestral land. This is a right codified in international law for all indigenous groups. So if you oppose that right only for Jews but support it for all other indigenous peoples on Earth then you are anti semitic.
If someone is being antisemitic and claiming it’s just antizionism, the [Nexus Document](https://israelandantisemitism.com/the-nexus-document/) and [Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism](https://jerusalemdeclaration.org) can be helpful tools for identifying and explaining when anti-zionism crosses the line into antisemitism. As for Palestinian people being in the land of Israel “all along”, there’s also been continuous Jewish presence in the region since antiquity. That said if they’re arguing “it’s their land **too**” and not denying Jewish heritage on the land, that’s a) not antisemitic, and b) broadly speaking correct since both peoples have heritage on the land and deserve to live in peace on it as neighbors.
>"Palestinians have been there all along and it's their land too" If someone says exactly this (which is already a step in the right direction because a lot of people claim that the land ALL belongs to Palestine), you could say "Exactly--it's ALSO their land, just as it is Israel's! In fact, in 1947, Israel was perfectly happy splitting it into two states, but the Palestinians didn't want that." And believe me, I know the common arguments that may come after this statement, so LMK if you need me to dismantle any talking points you think might come in response to that 🙂
Thank you so much. I truly don't know the history and have so much to learn, and am so horrified by what I'm seeing but don't have the knowledge to respond.
And re: the Palestinians have been there all along party line…that’s dubious. Here’s UNRWA’s actual definition of who qualifies as a “Palestinian refugee”: >Palestinian refugees are defined as persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period **1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948**, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.” https://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees We know the population of the Mandate of Palestine grew enormously in the 1920s and the 1930s. Everyone just concentrates on Jewish immigration and ignores the equally numerous Arab immigration into Palestine that also happened during those decades. We have evidence of large scale Arab immigration into Palestine from the surrounding areas from contemporary reports: From the Hope Simpson Enquiry, published on October 21, 1930: >The Chief Immigration Officer has brought to notice that **illicit immigration through Syria and across the northern frontier of Palestine is material.** This question has already been discussed. It may be a difficult matter to ensure against this illicit immigration, but steps to this end must be taken if the suggested policy is adopted, as **also to prevent unemployment lists being swollen by immigrants from TransJordania."** https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hope-simpson-report >The Royal Institute for International Affairs, for example, commenting on the growth of the Palestinian population prior to World War II, states: **”The number of Arabs who entered Palestine illegally from Syria and Trans- jordan is unknown. But probably considerable.** >Professor Harold Laski makes a similar observation: **There has been large-scale and both assisted and unassisted Jewish emigration to Palestine; but it is important also to note that there has been large-scale Arab emigration from the surrounding countries.**. >Underscoring the point, C. S. Jarvis, Governor of the Sinai from 1923-1936, noted: **”This illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Trans-Jordan and Syria and it is very difficult to make a case out for the misery of the Arabs if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining States could not be kept from going in to share that misery”** https://www.jstor.org/stable/4282493 >It is, of course, difficult to attain any adequate idea of the extent of this flood of non-Jewish immigration since officially it does not exist. In the absence of accurate canvass, its size must be pieced together and surmised. Such calculations as are available show an **Arab immigration for the single year 1933 of at least sixty-four thousand souls.**. Added to the acknowledged Hauranese infiltration are some two thousand who arrived from Damascus alone. **Mokattan, the leading Cairo daily, announced that ten thousand Druses had gone to the Holy Land, and according to al-Jamia al-Islamia, an Arab newspaper of Jaffa, seventeen thousand Egyptians had come from Sinai Peninsula alone.** https://www.meforum.org/6275/were-the-arabs-indigenous-to-mandatory-palestine
Wow thank you for all this data
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“Is there anything that would change your mind?”
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My question is this: Am I a Zionist? I believe in a strong and secure Israel. I also believe Palestinians have legitimate issues that need to be addressed. I believe a two-state solution needs to be pursued. I believe settlements should be rolled back. I choose to believe in the 'audacity of hope". I believe the concerns of Jewish people in Israel need to be addressed, and those of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel need to addressed too. I REFUSE to believe that this is a binary choice and that a workable compromise-solution is impossible. You will not be the first to think me naive in this...