[Serious] Jews of Lemmy, what are your family conversations about the war like?
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I've had multiple family members deployed to active warzones.
Whenever we talked about war, it was never about politics. It was always "X's tour is supposed to finish next month," or "I heard something happened near [town], wasn't X deployed near there?"
I know how everyone talks about it on the internet, but what is it like for you at home?
My ex is Jewish and my kids are half Jewish. Our discussions have been focused on the fact that what Netanyahu is doing has been making Jews less safe around the world. anti-Semitism is rising because of the fact he is murdering innocent people and children
My kids are less safe because of the Israeli PM and his Zionist government
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I've had multiple family members deployed to active warzones.
Whenever we talked about war, it was never about politics. It was always "X's tour is supposed to finish next month," or "I heard something happened near [town], wasn't X deployed near there?"
I know how everyone talks about it on the internet, but what is it like for you at home?
I know my family are raging Zionist so I don't even bring it up.
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But don't most Israelis* take part in the killing (either directly or indirectly by being a POG) through their military service? In America, I could believe that while most people are stupid and amoral, there are only a minority of bloodthirsty racists...
Most Jews don't live in Israel. 18 million Jews, 7 million live in Israel. The way you framed your comment doesn't really make sense. You're talking about Israelis, not Jews as a whole.
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Most Jews don't live in Israel. 18 million Jews, 7 million live in Israel. The way you framed your comment doesn't really make sense. You're talking about Israelis, not Jews as a whole.
Yeah, most Israelis, let me change that up quick.
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I've had multiple family members deployed to active warzones.
Whenever we talked about war, it was never about politics. It was always "X's tour is supposed to finish next month," or "I heard something happened near [town], wasn't X deployed near there?"
I know how everyone talks about it on the internet, but what is it like for you at home?
Apologies in advance for the wall of text. We've had a lot of conversations....
Spouse is half Israeli with lots of family over there. I'm casually Jewish with AuDHD for context so we tend to see things really differently.
I personally don't like that religious countries exist in the first place. So I'm not only against Israel, but also most countries in that part of the world. "Just nuke that entire part of the world" has been mentioned quite a few times. So that's a bit of the conversation.
We tend to focus on the hostages when we talk about the war, and that Israel may be winning the ground war but it's losing the pr war.
We blame Bibi for keeping the war going and not making more surgical spy-type strikes. I used to say that he had one day to get the world behind him and say "look, this is what I've been talking about about!!!" That was all dismissed though when the first cease fire happened. Hamas broke it by sending some small numbers of missiles that got caught by the iron dome and Israel retaliated by sending 100x the number of missiles, killing several people. The news outlets all led with Israel sending the rockets and only briefly mentioned that Hamas struck first.
We blame Hamas for keeping all of their leaders in other countries and all of their weapons and missile silos in civilians backyards. Treating their citizens like shit and saying the only way their family is guaranteed to not go hungry is to join the military....
Just putting this out there .... If you're American and not native American. And native Americans were yelling "from sea to shining sea the native American tribes must be free" and started killing people, started saying how they want their land back and everything ..... How would that be treated?
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Apologies in advance for the wall of text. We've had a lot of conversations....
Spouse is half Israeli with lots of family over there. I'm casually Jewish with AuDHD for context so we tend to see things really differently.
I personally don't like that religious countries exist in the first place. So I'm not only against Israel, but also most countries in that part of the world. "Just nuke that entire part of the world" has been mentioned quite a few times. So that's a bit of the conversation.
We tend to focus on the hostages when we talk about the war, and that Israel may be winning the ground war but it's losing the pr war.
We blame Bibi for keeping the war going and not making more surgical spy-type strikes. I used to say that he had one day to get the world behind him and say "look, this is what I've been talking about about!!!" That was all dismissed though when the first cease fire happened. Hamas broke it by sending some small numbers of missiles that got caught by the iron dome and Israel retaliated by sending 100x the number of missiles, killing several people. The news outlets all led with Israel sending the rockets and only briefly mentioned that Hamas struck first.
We blame Hamas for keeping all of their leaders in other countries and all of their weapons and missile silos in civilians backyards. Treating their citizens like shit and saying the only way their family is guaranteed to not go hungry is to join the military....
Just putting this out there .... If you're American and not native American. And native Americans were yelling "from sea to shining sea the native American tribes must be free" and started killing people, started saying how they want their land back and everything ..... How would that be treated?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Bibi literally admitted that the Israeli government feeds Hamas in order to have excuses for the war. “Hamas struck first”, should always be followed with “Israel is an invading power committing genocide”. You would've been the kind of German who would always justify the Nazi occupations, because “the partisans struck first”, Then feel righteous because you think Hitler shouldn't be the one leading the Reich. Like, even your example is ignoring the fact that the British committed genocide against Native Americans, then the American state continued it.
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My working definition is something like liberals would like everyone to be happy and get along but aren't willing to give up an ounce of their own privilege for that to happen. Also quite ignorant about the actual realities of the social issues they allegedly care about. Can be mixed with many other ideologies because it doesn't have any political substance of its own.
I agree with your definition. I would also add that liberals support the institution of capital and generally provide cover for it's coercive nature.
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I know my family are raging Zionist so I don't even bring it up.
How did you manage to differ?
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I've had multiple family members deployed to active warzones.
Whenever we talked about war, it was never about politics. It was always "X's tour is supposed to finish next month," or "I heard something happened near [town], wasn't X deployed near there?"
I know how everyone talks about it on the internet, but what is it like for you at home?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I'm going to give an honest answer, but i fully expect to be downvoted and demonized for doing so. Nothing I can do about that, but op, you want an honest answer, this is it. I'll also add that I would 100% consider myself leftist, in fact, extremely leftist in most of my views. Why the hell would my username be what it is and why the hell would I be on lemmy if I wasn't... anyway... here's the answer since you asked for it:
The large majority of jews I know, including myself and my family feel like this current war is the fault of Hamas. Oct 7 doesn't happen, this war doesn't happen. We also are continually annoyed by the fact that most people on the left, constantly refuse to acknowledge that Hamas has been pushing this war forward non-stop for decades. All you have to do is look up number of missiles launched at Israel since 2000 to see that. People no-doubt try to rebut this by saying "but Israel has been stealing territory". My constant response to that is they have been taking territory to establish buffer zones to enhance security. As almost all of this land has been taken after conflict. Israel even tried to give back some of this land, but was then attacked again, and had to take land back in order to protect itself -- But eventually our conversation just goes back to why this is even happening and we are always frustrated by the fact that any argument from the left condemning Zionists always begins in 1948 -- when in fact the troubles of the region started hundreds of years before that. This pre-1948 history seems to never be brought up however. So the blame is always cast 100% on jews and all of the attacks on Jewish civilians within Israel are never ever given the time of day.
It's incredibly frustrating and scary, because the narrative is fully turning into "jews are evil", and there is nothing any Jewish person can do about it. Jews are never going to willingly leave Israel and Hamas is never going to stop trying to eradicate jews. There are only 16ish million jews on the planet and almost 2 billion Muslims. There is no way jews could ever win this propaganda war. I think a lot of jews who feel they are on the left side of the political spectrum are too scared to even speak about their feelings on Israel/Palestine at the moment, because they know they are going to be vastly outnumbered and demonized, by those they would usually consider friends, with anything they say. So most of us are silent on the subject because we don't want to be ostracized.
I will end this by saying, we of course feel bad for civilians caught in the crossfire, but we feel like Jewish civilians are not given that same respect. The sentiment we get is that Jewish civilians seem to deserve it.
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I'm going to give an honest answer, but i fully expect to be downvoted and demonized for doing so. Nothing I can do about that, but op, you want an honest answer, this is it. I'll also add that I would 100% consider myself leftist, in fact, extremely leftist in most of my views. Why the hell would my username be what it is and why the hell would I be on lemmy if I wasn't... anyway... here's the answer since you asked for it:
The large majority of jews I know, including myself and my family feel like this current war is the fault of Hamas. Oct 7 doesn't happen, this war doesn't happen. We also are continually annoyed by the fact that most people on the left, constantly refuse to acknowledge that Hamas has been pushing this war forward non-stop for decades. All you have to do is look up number of missiles launched at Israel since 2000 to see that. People no-doubt try to rebut this by saying "but Israel has been stealing territory". My constant response to that is they have been taking territory to establish buffer zones to enhance security. As almost all of this land has been taken after conflict. Israel even tried to give back some of this land, but was then attacked again, and had to take land back in order to protect itself -- But eventually our conversation just goes back to why this is even happening and we are always frustrated by the fact that any argument from the left condemning Zionists always begins in 1948 -- when in fact the troubles of the region started hundreds of years before that. This pre-1948 history seems to never be brought up however. So the blame is always cast 100% on jews and all of the attacks on Jewish civilians within Israel are never ever given the time of day.
It's incredibly frustrating and scary, because the narrative is fully turning into "jews are evil", and there is nothing any Jewish person can do about it. Jews are never going to willingly leave Israel and Hamas is never going to stop trying to eradicate jews. There are only 16ish million jews on the planet and almost 2 billion Muslims. There is no way jews could ever win this propaganda war. I think a lot of jews who feel they are on the left side of the political spectrum are too scared to even speak about their feelings on Israel/Palestine at the moment, because they know they are going to be vastly outnumbered and demonized, by those they would usually consider friends, with anything they say. So most of us are silent on the subject because we don't want to be ostracized.
I will end this by saying, we of course feel bad for civilians caught in the crossfire, but we feel like Jewish civilians are not given that same respect. The sentiment we get is that Jewish civilians seem to deserve it.
I appreciate the honesty but you seem to be missing the perspective that:
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The existence of the State of Israel is an explicit British colonization project and currently exists as a puppet state of "the empire".
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The power imbalance between the state of Israel and Hamas and the repeated, and well documented, war crimes and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the State of Israel.
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Left wing vs Right wing is a false dichotomy. You will have opinions and viewpoints of both matter your political self identification and they are poorly defined.
I would be curious to know your opinions about the judenrätes of WWII (whether they were heroes or villains, left wing vs right wing, etc.) and how the current State of Israel is not just a continuation of that?
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I appreciate the honesty but you seem to be missing the perspective that:
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The existence of the State of Israel is an explicit British colonization project and currently exists as a puppet state of "the empire".
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The power imbalance between the state of Israel and Hamas and the repeated, and well documented, war crimes and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the State of Israel.
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Left wing vs Right wing is a false dichotomy. You will have opinions and viewpoints of both matter your political self identification and they are poorly defined.
I would be curious to know your opinions about the judenrätes of WWII (whether they were heroes or villains, left wing vs right wing, etc.) and how the current State of Israel is not just a continuation of that?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]- Jewish re-colonization began long before the british had any input on the subject. The British were actually trying to stop Jewish migration for a while there. But the re-colonization of Israel by Jews goes back at least as far as the 1200s.
- There have been war crimes on both sides, and they both need be acknowledged in order to have a good faith conversation. Fact of the matter is that hamas is completely indiscriminate in their targets. There have been more than a few cases of Israeli civilian hostages being flat out raped and / or murdered by their captives during this war. I know of at least 2 instances where israeli hostages were actually killed by doctors.
I don't know enough about the Judenrates to give an opinion on the subject. It looks like an interesting topic though, so I will read up on it.
edit: on my brief reading abotu Judenrates during wwii i get the distinct impression that these were people thrust into leadership positions that they may or may have not have wanted. They were used by the Nazis to potentially make impossible choices that hurt their fellow community members, but they had to make these choices or else their community would have suffered even more harm. They had to make "lesser of the evils" choices. I imagine these choices often made their community members dislike them, whether or not the Judenrates were making these choices with intention of doing the best they could for their people.
I'm curious where you find a connection between these WWII Judenrates and present day Israel?
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I'm going to give an honest answer, but i fully expect to be downvoted and demonized for doing so. Nothing I can do about that, but op, you want an honest answer, this is it. I'll also add that I would 100% consider myself leftist, in fact, extremely leftist in most of my views. Why the hell would my username be what it is and why the hell would I be on lemmy if I wasn't... anyway... here's the answer since you asked for it:
The large majority of jews I know, including myself and my family feel like this current war is the fault of Hamas. Oct 7 doesn't happen, this war doesn't happen. We also are continually annoyed by the fact that most people on the left, constantly refuse to acknowledge that Hamas has been pushing this war forward non-stop for decades. All you have to do is look up number of missiles launched at Israel since 2000 to see that. People no-doubt try to rebut this by saying "but Israel has been stealing territory". My constant response to that is they have been taking territory to establish buffer zones to enhance security. As almost all of this land has been taken after conflict. Israel even tried to give back some of this land, but was then attacked again, and had to take land back in order to protect itself -- But eventually our conversation just goes back to why this is even happening and we are always frustrated by the fact that any argument from the left condemning Zionists always begins in 1948 -- when in fact the troubles of the region started hundreds of years before that. This pre-1948 history seems to never be brought up however. So the blame is always cast 100% on jews and all of the attacks on Jewish civilians within Israel are never ever given the time of day.
It's incredibly frustrating and scary, because the narrative is fully turning into "jews are evil", and there is nothing any Jewish person can do about it. Jews are never going to willingly leave Israel and Hamas is never going to stop trying to eradicate jews. There are only 16ish million jews on the planet and almost 2 billion Muslims. There is no way jews could ever win this propaganda war. I think a lot of jews who feel they are on the left side of the political spectrum are too scared to even speak about their feelings on Israel/Palestine at the moment, because they know they are going to be vastly outnumbered and demonized, by those they would usually consider friends, with anything they say. So most of us are silent on the subject because we don't want to be ostracized.
I will end this by saying, we of course feel bad for civilians caught in the crossfire, but we feel like Jewish civilians are not given that same respect. The sentiment we get is that Jewish civilians seem to deserve it.
Yeah, I see where you're coming from. I mean, I'm also 100% a leftist, I'm extremely left on most issues, but I also just don't get why so many people are opposed to this one particular state.
I mean, people always talk about the whole conflict with Germany starting in 1939, but you really have to consider that those wars happened because they were reclaiming territory like the Danzig Corridor that belonged to them historically. They even tried giving territory back to France by setting up the Vichy Republic. And it was the communists and partisans going around trying to stir up a class war who really started things, we had to put them in camps for the sake of security. And I feel bad for any innocent people caught up in it, but it just feels like nobody extends the same concerns to the German civilians the government is trying to protect. At the end of the day, if the Reichstag Fire hadn't happened, none of this would be happening.
Oh! My mistake, it seems I mixed up the names of some countries and events there. You're totally right though, if those people didn't want to get massacred and starved, they shouldn't have tried to resist your political project and/or had homes in places you wanted to forcibly seize. You know, this is just like what I'm always saying, "It's your own fault you got slapped, because you shouldn't have resisted." I mean, that's what leftism is all about, amirite?
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Yeah, I see where you're coming from. I mean, I'm also 100% a leftist, I'm extremely left on most issues, but I also just don't get why so many people are opposed to this one particular state.
I mean, people always talk about the whole conflict with Germany starting in 1939, but you really have to consider that those wars happened because they were reclaiming territory like the Danzig Corridor that belonged to them historically. They even tried giving territory back to France by setting up the Vichy Republic. And it was the communists and partisans going around trying to stir up a class war who really started things, we had to put them in camps for the sake of security. And I feel bad for any innocent people caught up in it, but it just feels like nobody extends the same concerns to the German civilians the government is trying to protect. At the end of the day, if the Reichstag Fire hadn't happened, none of this would be happening.
Oh! My mistake, it seems I mixed up the names of some countries and events there. You're totally right though, if those people didn't want to get massacred and starved, they shouldn't have tried to resist your political project and/or had homes in places you wanted to forcibly seize. You know, this is just like what I'm always saying, "It's your own fault you got slapped, because you shouldn't have resisted." I mean, that's what leftism is all about, amirite?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]not a fan of false equivalencies.
blocked.
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not a fan of false equivalencies.
blocked.
And I'm not a fan of Zionazis trying to pass themselves off as "leftists" while supporting genocide and apartheid, but here we are.
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- Jewish re-colonization began long before the british had any input on the subject. The British were actually trying to stop Jewish migration for a while there. But the re-colonization of Israel by Jews goes back at least as far as the 1200s.
- There have been war crimes on both sides, and they both need be acknowledged in order to have a good faith conversation. Fact of the matter is that hamas is completely indiscriminate in their targets. There have been more than a few cases of Israeli civilian hostages being flat out raped and / or murdered by their captives during this war. I know of at least 2 instances where israeli hostages were actually killed by doctors.
I don't know enough about the Judenrates to give an opinion on the subject. It looks like an interesting topic though, so I will read up on it.
edit: on my brief reading abotu Judenrates during wwii i get the distinct impression that these were people thrust into leadership positions that they may or may have not have wanted. They were used by the Nazis to potentially make impossible choices that hurt their fellow community members, but they had to make these choices or else their community would have suffered even more harm. They had to make "lesser of the evils" choices. I imagine these choices often made their community members dislike them, whether or not the Judenrates were making these choices with intention of doing the best they could for their people.
I'm curious where you find a connection between these WWII Judenrates and present day Israel?
the re-colonization of Israel by Jews goes back at least as far as the 1200s.
Immigration is not the same as colonization. When immigrating to a location (even mass migration) the power dynamics do not allow for the migrating group to dominate the local group. Colonization is when that power dynamic is flipped.
There have been war crimes on both sides, and they both need be acknowledged
Again power dynamics and scale are the most important factor here. If someone punches you that does not give you the right to murder their whole family. If someone peacefully barged their way into your home and you to leave what would your response be?
They were used by the Nazis to potentially make impossible choices that hurt their fellow community members, but they had to make these choices or else their community would have suffered even more harm
Yes, but why did Nazi Germany form them? What was their purpose in the machine?
I'm curious where you find a connection between these WWII Judenrates
I think it would be more productive for you to do a bit of reading and come back with what you think I'm getting at. I think answering that now would color the perception and make it harder to learn about a very important political concept.
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I'm going to give an honest answer, but i fully expect to be downvoted and demonized for doing so. Nothing I can do about that, but op, you want an honest answer, this is it. I'll also add that I would 100% consider myself leftist, in fact, extremely leftist in most of my views. Why the hell would my username be what it is and why the hell would I be on lemmy if I wasn't... anyway... here's the answer since you asked for it:
The large majority of jews I know, including myself and my family feel like this current war is the fault of Hamas. Oct 7 doesn't happen, this war doesn't happen. We also are continually annoyed by the fact that most people on the left, constantly refuse to acknowledge that Hamas has been pushing this war forward non-stop for decades. All you have to do is look up number of missiles launched at Israel since 2000 to see that. People no-doubt try to rebut this by saying "but Israel has been stealing territory". My constant response to that is they have been taking territory to establish buffer zones to enhance security. As almost all of this land has been taken after conflict. Israel even tried to give back some of this land, but was then attacked again, and had to take land back in order to protect itself -- But eventually our conversation just goes back to why this is even happening and we are always frustrated by the fact that any argument from the left condemning Zionists always begins in 1948 -- when in fact the troubles of the region started hundreds of years before that. This pre-1948 history seems to never be brought up however. So the blame is always cast 100% on jews and all of the attacks on Jewish civilians within Israel are never ever given the time of day.
It's incredibly frustrating and scary, because the narrative is fully turning into "jews are evil", and there is nothing any Jewish person can do about it. Jews are never going to willingly leave Israel and Hamas is never going to stop trying to eradicate jews. There are only 16ish million jews on the planet and almost 2 billion Muslims. There is no way jews could ever win this propaganda war. I think a lot of jews who feel they are on the left side of the political spectrum are too scared to even speak about their feelings on Israel/Palestine at the moment, because they know they are going to be vastly outnumbered and demonized, by those they would usually consider friends, with anything they say. So most of us are silent on the subject because we don't want to be ostracized.
I will end this by saying, we of course feel bad for civilians caught in the crossfire, but we feel like Jewish civilians are not given that same respect. The sentiment we get is that Jewish civilians seem to deserve it.
I appreciate your forthrightness, and on many points we quite agree, notably noone's keen to leave and that the current charged atmosphere around the war does chill honest representation of one's ideals.
That said, while this particular war was the result of Hamas and their October 7 attack, I believe that if not them, some other group would "lead the charge" maybe it would have been more of a single flashpoint or a series of smaller skirmishes, but conflict was (and continues to be) inevitable under the circumstances that Palestinians and Israelis live in.
I want to inquire further on your take that Israeli buffer zones are the land theft so demonized by the anti-Zionists. We see the expansion of the buffer zone in Syria as a landgrab because any security buffer sufficient for defense against the Assad regime should be more than enough, especially when paired with Israeli strikes on weapons caches and bases in Syria. The more puzzling point, though, is the establishment of new settlements and growth of existing settlements in the West Bank even as recently as this week.
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the re-colonization of Israel by Jews goes back at least as far as the 1200s.
Immigration is not the same as colonization. When immigrating to a location (even mass migration) the power dynamics do not allow for the migrating group to dominate the local group. Colonization is when that power dynamic is flipped.
There have been war crimes on both sides, and they both need be acknowledged
Again power dynamics and scale are the most important factor here. If someone punches you that does not give you the right to murder their whole family. If someone peacefully barged their way into your home and you to leave what would your response be?
They were used by the Nazis to potentially make impossible choices that hurt their fellow community members, but they had to make these choices or else their community would have suffered even more harm
Yes, but why did Nazi Germany form them? What was their purpose in the machine?
I'm curious where you find a connection between these WWII Judenrates
I think it would be more productive for you to do a bit of reading and come back with what you think I'm getting at. I think answering that now would color the perception and make it harder to learn about a very important political concept.
we could have a big argument on the power dynamics you're talking about, and I don't really want to, but I will note the slew of pogroms in the middle east and ask you read about why the Bar Giora was formed. This was not a one sided affair.
and you talk about murdering whole families as if that wasn't the intent of pogroms. Again, both perspectives need to be taken into account.
as for the stuff about the Judenrates, I don't really want to play games with you. Tell me what your point is or drop it.
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I appreciate your forthrightness, and on many points we quite agree, notably noone's keen to leave and that the current charged atmosphere around the war does chill honest representation of one's ideals.
That said, while this particular war was the result of Hamas and their October 7 attack, I believe that if not them, some other group would "lead the charge" maybe it would have been more of a single flashpoint or a series of smaller skirmishes, but conflict was (and continues to be) inevitable under the circumstances that Palestinians and Israelis live in.
I want to inquire further on your take that Israeli buffer zones are the land theft so demonized by the anti-Zionists. We see the expansion of the buffer zone in Syria as a landgrab because any security buffer sufficient for defense against the Assad regime should be more than enough, especially when paired with Israeli strikes on weapons caches and bases in Syria. The more puzzling point, though, is the establishment of new settlements and growth of existing settlements in the West Bank even as recently as this week.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I cannot defend the establishment of new settlements in taken territories. All I can say is palastine has had plenty of chances to maintain and keep their territories. Like I've said, Israel even tried to hand back large amounts of land, but that was jut followed by palistinian attack. Over and over again Hamas has decided that peace is not the way forward. I don't believe this is the fault of the average Palistinian though. I believe this is the fault of the palistinian leadership which uses these wars like a piggy bank. Robbing their people of billions in aid money while living in luxury in Quatar and other arab states. They're not waging these wars because they think they can win. They are doing it because they think they can profit. And I strongly believe, hell, I know, that Russia had a huge hand in pushing Hamas toward Oct 7 in order to distrac the west from Ukraine. If we're being honest, its was an absolutely masterful move by Putiin because, it 1. distracted from Ukraine and 2. split liberal voters in the west. And I think this really needs to be acknowledged a lot more than it is.
I'll say this though. I do not believe a two state solution is realistic or possible. The hatred of palistinians toward jews is just too systemically ingrained and indoctrinated. This system of indoctrination of Palistinian youth needs to be completely dismantled for there to be a lasting peace. And I don't think that will ever happen while a seperate (from Israel) Palastine exists. I think Israel knows this well, and what we're seeing now is Israel trying to unite the two lands through force. They are trying to end the war for good. Israel and Palestine need to be one nation. And arabs and Israelis need to learn to live in peace. It is the only sustainable path forward.
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Just wanted to say you're getting a skewed picture of people's opinions, as Lemmy isn't popular / well known at all in Israel.
The absolute majority of Jews in Israel are united in wanting the hostages back (currently 58, of which an estimated half are still alive).
A lot want that and to end the war ASAP, not for any real concern for the Palestinians, but for the troops, the economy, and world image.
A lot want to keep going to eradicate Hamas and Hezbollah and Houthis to prevent October 7th from ever happening again.
It's difficult to be pro Palestinian when your friends and family have been slaughtered or held hostage by a (seemingly) unprovoked attack against soldiers and civilians.
The Overton window in Israel doesn't currently allow it, though things might have been changing very recently.
At least here, we don't discuss it much in the same way we don't discuss the mountain near town; it's there, we can't move it, shrug your shoulders, it's part of the landscape.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]This is a lengthy question, but it comes from a place of positive intent and genuine inquiry.
As someone stateside with Jewish friends in JVP as well as Palestinian sympathies of my own, this is context that I'm missing. I read about the refusenik movement and the Likud Party's stances on conscientious objectors. And similarly, Holocaust denial on the Hamas side and openly cidal rhetoric. I read a bit about the original treaty between Mohammed and the other local tribes, as it was a founding document for sharia law. As a result, the subsequent Jewish exile shaped the lives and culture of the diaspora. Not just their religion, but their philosophy and morality. The genocide of the Holocaust led a number of German and European Jews to be given the option--from the bloodied hands of the Nazi regime--an opportunity to instead be deported to Palestine as part of the Haavara agreement. The following Nakba, what Israel describes as the War of Independence, was described by neutral parties in the region as a massacre by extreme-right settlers who killed Palestinian Arabs (regardless of religious denomination) and Jewish sympathizers equally. Subsequent laws drawing the lines of Israel by the 1948 lines drew Palestinian Arabs as blatant second class citizens in what I, as an outsider, percieve as a reflection of Sharia law. Gaza's creation as an open air prison complex is, by national convention, a collective punishment.
This is the context as far as I understand it. Forgive the gaps in my knowledge, I'm a white American with no religious or familial ties to either. But if both the Israeli system treats non-Jews as an other to be eliminated, and the pro-Caliphate extremists favor nearly identical conditions for non-Muslims, which is better? Each regime results in an apartheid-driven ethnostate. Each party having, at one point or another in the past several hundred years, perpetrated several wars and genocides against one another in a struggle for a piece of land that has formed the axis of every major Abrahamic religious conflict since the 8th century, is... a lot.
Is returning a genocide for a genocide right? Is it equitable to vow the extermination of an outsider as vengeance for a crime that their great grandparents don't remember? Obviously, my fluency in both cultures is severely limited, and I'm trying my best to understand. But if the sanctity of life and the forgiveness of one's enemies are values held by both cultures, what is the catalyst for this genocide as it stands currently?
If this sounds like an attack, I swear it isn't. I haven't had a conversation with someone actually from Israel concerning the matter, believe it or not. So my picture of the situation has been incomplete. Obviously, this was never about October 7th. This started long before that. But where, and when? And why?
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I cannot defend the establishment of new settlements in taken territories. All I can say is palastine has had plenty of chances to maintain and keep their territories. Like I've said, Israel even tried to hand back large amounts of land, but that was jut followed by palistinian attack. Over and over again Hamas has decided that peace is not the way forward. I don't believe this is the fault of the average Palistinian though. I believe this is the fault of the palistinian leadership which uses these wars like a piggy bank. Robbing their people of billions in aid money while living in luxury in Quatar and other arab states. They're not waging these wars because they think they can win. They are doing it because they think they can profit. And I strongly believe, hell, I know, that Russia had a huge hand in pushing Hamas toward Oct 7 in order to distrac the west from Ukraine. If we're being honest, its was an absolutely masterful move by Putiin because, it 1. distracted from Ukraine and 2. split liberal voters in the west. And I think this really needs to be acknowledged a lot more than it is.
I'll say this though. I do not believe a two state solution is realistic or possible. The hatred of palistinians toward jews is just too systemically ingrained and indoctrinated. This system of indoctrination of Palistinian youth needs to be completely dismantled for there to be a lasting peace. And I don't think that will ever happen while a seperate (from Israel) Palastine exists. I think Israel knows this well, and what we're seeing now is Israel trying to unite the two lands through force. They are trying to end the war for good. Israel and Palestine need to be one nation. And arabs and Israelis need to learn to live in peace. It is the only sustainable path forward.
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Why did Palestinians start hating Jews?
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What did Israel do to help resolve that conflict?
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Which side has disproportionately taken casualties throughout the history of the nation?
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Which side has a military doctrine which allows for nuking any invading force?
I think #1 is probably a good starting point to come to grips with the reasons for the Palestinian people fighting, literally, for survival.
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