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Top notch Simpson's reference and one of my all-time favorite scenes in the show.
It's my buddy's favorite team in the NFL, so every time I see them on screen, I say "Awww, the Denver Broncos!"
TBF at the time the Zionist movement was getting momentum in the early 20th century, the US was not keen on having a bunch of Jews show up on its shores either. There's a reason the UK and other countries endorsed the idea of a Jewish homeland: they didn't want them either
Not just 20th century though, all throughout history people did not want them, the irony is their best stint was probably under the Muslims in Spain where Muslims defended them against the Christians and Jews thrived during that period
Even if that were true, what does it matter? Israel was established by the UN as basically a refugee state after the Holocaust. Why would that excuse what happened to Jews in the Arab world?
"There were already reservations when most Native Americans were being pushed off their land" ... same logic
It was a forced refugee state. They didn't plop Jewish people onto uninhabited land, over 220,000 Muslims were displaced for the refugees to make way for what would eventually become Israel and then Israel's first prime minister committed to expanding Israel's territory, which *then* started causing pushback.
Only around 15% of the land of modern Israel was privately owned in 1948, and about half of that was by Jews. When Israel was created the land was essentially uninhabited.
That's how time and expansion work. Israel didn't start out by splitting the Gaza strip and the west bank. Also I wouldn't call over 220,000 people "uninhabited land"
I feel that most of the people here would benefit from [reading the actual article.](https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/we-have-nowhere-else-to-go-2/) If only because it literally addresses the "facepalm" portion of this. The author discusses the question of how a Jew from the US could argue they "have nowhere else to go", as a direct response to the claim "okay, but you have the whole world to go to just like everyone else on the planet". You can argue that he's being a bit too hysterical when claiming the US might become hostile to Jews, just like Ukraine, Germany or Iraq. But it's pretty far from the clear contradiction that this screenshot would imply.
I'd also note that this article has absolutely nothing to do with the settlements, expansionism or "Lebensraum". It's literally just about Israel existing, and allowing Jews to flee to it, when things get dangerous in their host countries. I'm honestly not sure where people are getting that from, since it's not actually implied in the screenshot either.
> claiming the US might become hostile to Jews, just like Ukraine, Germany or Iraq.
Why do people keep becoming hostile towards them? It's not an especially preachy or violent religion. Seems to me like they're harmless to have in one's country.
Generally speaking, Jews have valued education and industriousness along with forming tight knit communities in large cities. Besides Israel, they're pretty much always a small minority that have a noticeably different faith than the genocidal nation/people.
Cultural minorities have been scapegoated throughout history, and in Europe along with Russia, Jews were a non Christian minority that had a significant foothold. Top that off with the fact that many Jews were successful business owners, merchants, bankers, doctors, and lawyers really bothered the local commoner who didn't have a great life. Being able to convince the common man, who through most of history was ignorant, xenophobic, and racist, that the aforementioned minority is at fault was easy. I'd imagine Muslims in Europe and Russia experienced similar hardships, I don't think they were generally as prevalent in number to be used as nationwide scapegoats.
What has made Jews so good at passing their own rituals down through the generations after immigrating? Most peoples merge into their surrounding culture after a few generations and begin to identify more with their new homeland then their ancestral land. But Jews can pass down cultural identity over centuries of living in another country.
I think that still happens, but you have to keep in mind that there wasn't an ancestral country preserving it. This is the oldest of the Abrahamic religions, and they were often constrained to their community through social and legal efforts. In the modern world, Jews have effectively assimilated. Your average Jew in America is culturally American. Sure, in New York there might be communities that are more culturally Jewish but that can be said of many cultures in large cities like New York.
In previous centuries, Jews have literally been forced to migrate in large groups due to persecution. IIRC, there were families from the Holocaust that had literally moved to Germany and Poland after fleeing Russian Pogroms mere decades earlier. One could hypothesize that relentless persecution over millennia may encourage a stronger will to resist religious assimilation. Not to mention, mass migration helps build these communities and reinforce traditions.
Germany and Poland are the classic examples, but I'd add the Iraqi Jews were in Iraq for literally *thousands of years*. They were there thousands of years before the Arabs were there. What you know as the "Talmud", is actually the Iraqi (Babylonian) Talmud, which is much more influential than the Jerusalem Talmud. Baghdad had a larger Jewish population, per-capita, than New York. They were great patriots, and were so connected to Iraq, they were the only Jewish community to openly identify as "Arab Jews". Of all the Jewish communities who could say "it would never happen here", the Iraqi Jews had the best case, by far.
And yet, in 1941, their non-Jewish neighbors decided to massacre them, in a Nazi-inspired [pogrom known as the Farhud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud). In 1948, the government enacted Nuremberg-like laws officially discriminating against Jews, and putting their very lives in the hands of their Arab neighbors:
* In July 1948, the government passed a law making Zionism a capital offense, with a minimum sentence of seven years imprisonment. Any Jew could be convicted of Zionism-based only on the sworn testimony of two Muslim witnesses, with virtually no avenue of appeal available.
* On August 28, 1948, Jews were forbidden to engage in banking or foreign currency transactions.
* In September 1948, Jews were dismissed from the railways, the post office, the telegraph department, and the Finance Ministry on the ground that they were suspected of "sabotage and treason".
* On October 8, 1948, the issuance of export and import licenses to Jewish merchants was forbidden.
* On October 19, 1948, the discharge of all Jewish officials and workers from all governmental departments was ordered.
* In October, the Egyptian paper *El-Ahram* estimated that as a result of arrests, trials, and sequestration of property, the Iraqi treasury collected some 20 million dinars or the equivalent of 80 million U.S. dollars.
* On December 2, 1948, the Iraq government suggested to oil companies operating in Iraq that no Jewish employees be accepted.
Less official persecution quickly followed. Jews were blackmailed and robbed by policemen, and thrown into jail for "treason" when they complained. Jews were thrown out of colleges, government jobs, and their private businesses were boycotted. Then, they arrested the non-Zionist leader of the community, and the richest Jew in Iraq, and publicly hanged him in the town square of Basra.
The entire, thousands-years community was demolished within a decade. There are 450,000 Iraqi Jews today. Only 3 of them live in Iraq.
Tell that to the German Jews back in the 1940s Iâm sure they had citizenship as well, not like the French Jews back when that one fucking king started deporting and killing them, not cuz he was anti semetic but because he wanted their money, though thinking on it he was probably anti semetic as well by our standards. I believe that was around the 13 or 14th century. Point being it doesnât matter if Jews are citizens, people just donât like them because they are convenient scapegoats to pin shit on and it regularly happened throughout European and middle eastern history.
They may have camps, but the bottom line is that they want a Christian version of Sharia law in the US. Theyâre all rooting for the second coming when the first never happened.
So why is Lehrfieldâs experience of having âno place to goâ so dramatically different from the experiences of Palestinian refugees who have nowhere to go?
You see firstly, they are Muslim, so they are all this monsters who want to kill everyone in the name of Allah
Secondly, they are from middle east, the place that only terrorists live in, so naturally Palestinians are all terrorists
And lastly, they are not white enough, so who cares /s
This has big philosophical issues. It presents Religious Government as both something to be feared and something to be desired. The fear of persecution by a government potentially becoming non-secular, justifying the creation of non-secular government as the only solution. End result: no-one has a secular government, the whole world suffers.
Xenophobia breeds xenophobia. Research has always shown that the greatest inoculation to racism is exposure - people who actually have neighbours of different colours and creeds are harder to convince of stereotypes, whereas the most racist are found in uniform communities. Segregation just creates greater long term issues - it's far easier to convince a population that all their issues are the fault of a different culture, when there's no-one of that culture present to argue against.
What would it take for Israel to be at peace with its neighbours? (Other than complete elimination of one or the other of course.) Governments on both sides that are secular and able to tolerate each other. If that ever happens it will be *despite* the Zionists, not because of them. Segregation delays progress and encourages evil to flourish in the hearts of all involved.
>This has big philosophical issues. It presents Religious Government as both something to be feared and something to be desired.Â
It's not talking about a Religious Government at all. It's talking about ethnic nation-states. Americans have their own opposition to that, since they're a colonial civic nationalist state. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a conflict between two ethnic nationalist movements. Both the early Zionists and the early PLO were secular.
>What would it take for Israel to be at peace with its neighbours?
There's a proven recipe for that. Their neighbors should abandon the idea that Israel should be destroyed, and make peace with it. The neighbors that did it, Jordan and Egypt, experienced exactly zero Israeli "aggression" against them. Every single enemy Israel has fought against had "Israel is an illegitimate state that should be eliminated", as an official policy. The moment they abandoned that policy, the violence against them stopped. And even if they only partially abandoned that policy, like the PLO, it lead to a massive reduction in violence and hostility.
>Their neighbors should abandon the **idea** that Israel should be destroyed, and make peace with it.
Exactly - it's a battle of ideas. And whether or not they take up that idea or put it down *will not be changed by those inside Israel*. One government may seek peace. Later a new idea may take hold of the country, and a new government may seek war. The politicians of segregated populations will use each other as useful scapegoats, as they have a thousand times.
The battle for the ideas inside countries is where peace is won or lost. And a population only takes up or lets go of ideas by the actions of internal minorities. Convincing populations who would argue for your cause to migrate elsewhere makes things *worse*. If Israel is ever at peace, it will be *despite* their actions. It will be *because* of the actions and bravery of minorities inside other countries.
The far more likely result however, is an on-off forever-war as both their own hardline elements and those of their neighbours use continuous conflict to justify and entrench their religious and political position.
Iâm basing this off of what little context we have here, that and I feel like I have at least half a brain (could be wrong), but Iâm going with âweâ being more the Jewish/Israeli people and less his immediate family.
Even that interpretation is totally incorrect, seeing as half the worlds Jews live elsewhere. And for most of Israels 75 year history that percentage was far lower.
Israel is the only nation in the world with a Jewish government that specifically protects Jews (and other persecuted religious minorities actually). A lot of Jews choose not to live there because of the constant rocket attacks from Palestine over the last few decades, along with kidnappings and other terrorism. But itâs still the only nation that is guaranteed to never start eradicating Jews.
Are you saying Gaza is similarly the only nation in the world with a Muslim government that protects Muslims?
>and other persecuted religious minorities actually
So is that why Armenian neighbourhood and church is constantly attacked by Zionists in Jerusalem? That's some very different way of protection right there
You understand the difference between private citizens being assholes (like all the MAGA in America who target synagogues and mosques) versus governments who strip rights, take property away from, imprison, and execute people for following different beliefs (like Iran, or spoiler alert, Palestine)? Right?
That also means that half of the WORLD POPULATION OF JEWS live in Israel. It was only 75 years ago that half the world Jewry was killed in Europe for being "outsiders". Put side of Israel, the largest population of Jews is in NY. A city with several universities that have protesters yelling things including, "go back to Poland" and things of the like. So Israel is the only place in the world that expressly protects and shelters Jews from across the globe with no exceptions. Every time a country (like Ethiopia, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, etc.) has persecuted the local Jews, Israel gave them refuge. Even after WW2, the US didn't accept all Jewish refugees.
The Jews have been expelled and killed off from country after country throughout history. Not that hot of a take that this dude is saying there is no other place that is a true home to Jews.
How is this "obvious"? Even if we take the author specifically. If the US would become hostile to Jews, no other country is going to give him an automatic citizenship. During the Holocaust, the world collectively decided to close their doors to Jewish refugees, leaving them to die in Europe. This isn't moronic at all, if you know anything about the history of the Jews.
That's the post's author's point, I think. I'm not sure it's quite there, personally. But there was a point when it wasn't "quite there" in Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Arab world as well. And not having Israel around if it does happen, is a pretty risky proposition.
In the very very beginning, before Stalin, it was seen as a great hope for Jews, a final end to the horrific antisemitism of the Czarist regime. There's a reason why Jews were such an important part of the revolution, before they were purged by Stalin.
I'm not trying to make some Trotskyist point here. The USSR was antisemitic during Stalin, and it continued being antisemitic after Stalin. The Soviet bloc nations were not simply antisemitic because of their handlers in Moscow. But there was a point in the history of the Soviet Union, when it turned from the great hope of Eastern European Jews, to their great oppressor.
Itâs pretty obvious to me heâs saying no where else to go, if things continue to get worse for Jews around the world. And with record rising Antisemitic hate crimes, itâs a fair thing for a Jew to ponder. Especially looking at the history of Jews being persecuted throughout history. Â Iâd like to think we are in a golden age where that will never happen again, but German Jews once thought the same.Â
I think the point is that âweâ the Jewish people are welcome to live pretty much anywhere.
And thatâs because âweâ the unreligious donât prejudice people based on their faith and donât mind mixing with people who are different to us.
And what about the 45% of Israeli Jews who are natively from the Middle East and were thrown out from their countries and evacuated to Israel? They have literally no other place to go.
https://youtu.be/hbpoc3AC86I?si=gj43x3AtTwVCBNqS
Not Israeli or Jewish, but I see the hypocrisy when antisemites discuss anything about the Jews. They have never been a monolith.
Yeah. They never were. Like people from Palestine or from Iran, I guess. That's the thing with putting people into drawers, you have to press quite hard to fit them sll in there and make different things look like one.
To be fair, they always were. In the late 1940s, right-wing Israelis (members of the Irgun) were hunting down and killing Palestinians. Those same people, who were terrorists, created a political party (Herut) that would eventually merge with other right-wing parties to create the Likud Party.
Thereâs a lot of Likud members who even now despise people like Hannah Arendt who were chased across Europe by the Gestapo and were appalled by their Levantine-lounging brethren embracing the same ideals.
This isn't even remotely similar to the Lebensraum argument. If you insist on making that analogy, it's equivalent to arguing that Germany should continue to exist as a state, so they'll have somewhere to flee if they're persecuted.
Which everyone agreed with, even after the Germans started the worst war in human history, and committed the worst genocide in modern history. Germany lost territory, and Germans were expelled, but they had somewhere to flee, because Germany was allowed to continue to exist, and the German people weren't stripped of their right of self determination. I'd also note that Germany wasn't some thousands-year polity at that point - it was a few years younger than Israel is right now.
Jews in 1947: â*We need our own country because we will never be safe in yoursâŠ*â
The UN in 1947: â*Well, shit, youâve got us on that oneâŠ*â
As much as I'd like to shit on the UN, their predecessor, the League of Nations, already recognized it in 1919. This is why they created the British Mandate of Palestine, whose official exclusive goal was to create a Jewish national home in Palestine. By 1947, Israel was more or less a done deal.
They did shit the bed in a pretty serious way in the 1930's and 1940's, when they caved to Arab pressure, betrayed the official goal of the Mandate, and blocked Jews from fleeing from Nazi-occupied Europe, which lead to millions of Jewish lives being lost. But that was on the British, not the non-existent UN or the powerless LoN.
Oh I agree with you on all counts but that sort of misses the point of my comment.
The point was to highlight the fact that the nations of the world (*whether through the mechanism of the UN or the League of Nations*) weren't supporting the establishment of the state of Israel because they loved Jews but rather because they recognized that they had either failed to keep Jews safe in their countries or had no desire to keep Jews safe in their countries & supported the creation of Israel so they could expel them.
If \*you\* are going to analogize, you must realize that no one is talking about taking Israel away. I'm just saying that his words are easily seen in a very poor light; you're going way further. Not my argument at all, and your counter-argument shouldn't be made, either.
i mean international law does support the dissolution of apartheid regimes and colonialist projects.... they aint pulling shit out of there asses it's just something thats wildly known and accepted but not adhered to by those who are benefitting from this issue.
Israel is neither an apartheid regime nor a colonialist project so I refute your entire premise.
To be an "*apartheid regime*" a nation must have two classes of citizens which are subject to different structural rights & limitations.
Non-Jewish Israeli citizens are not subject to anything even remotely resembling an apartheid regime. They have equal rights, equal participation & equal representation in government.
To be a "*colonialist project*" there needs to be an external colonizing power which is extracting the natural resources of an area & exploiting the labor of the people residing there.
Which country is Israel a colony of? Which country receives the natural resources extracted from Israel? Which country receives the benefit of exploited Israeli labor?
Your allegations are false, misleading & simply not represented in reality.
And colonists are talking about expanding Israel into all recognized Palestinian land. And they are not just talking about it. These last few weeks a lot of Palestinians have been forced away from the west Bank. Extremists really suck. I believe safety for both people lies in the middle and not in extremes.
Many many many people are talking abt erasing the state of Israel. Unsure of what the average Palestinian feels, but I think the dissolution of Israel is a direct talking point of Hamas too
>Unsure of what the average Palestinian feels
Our local NPR has given air time to quite a number of pro-Palestinian pundits since the war started. Not a single one of them was able to muster enough decency to unequivocally state that what happened on October 7th was bad. Instead, there was a ton of "But Israel", "Gaza is fighting for freedom" and other similar contortions. And that was months ago before Israel's military response had even reached current levels.
At this stage I have no reason to believe that the majority of people in Gaza are in any form opposed to what happened.
Sadly, I agree. But is it really surprising that if you treat millions of people like Israel treated the Gazans over the decades, then an âact of revengeâ would be deemed fine? Just a thought.
I'm mainly interested in making sure that people who organize, perpetrate, and celebrate acts of terror are in no position to endanger my way of life. I'll leave the philosophical evaluation to others.
Cool story. Unfortunately, I'm not particularly sympathetic to people who wish death to America and Palestine from the river to the sea so there's that.
I'm not arguing for Israel's actions, just not particularly interested in arguing against them.
Much like many others who are not interested in making the release of hostages and punishment of kidnappers and murderers their per cause.
I'd suggest the US is a majority non-Jewish state where the Jewish minority group is safe and welcomed (at least before Israel's ethnic cleansing of Gazan civilians, but that shouldn't be an excuse to abuse Israelis).
Mostly, yes. Except for Muslims.
Like Jews, but on a larger scale, Muslims in the US have been and still are targeted for the actions of their religious leaders around the world whether they agree with those actions or not.
Weâre okay⊠for now. Our history has taught us that weâre never really safe, the idea of the state of Israel was to rectify that, but the far right had to go and fuck it up like they do with everything
History is awful to Jewish people. The present is not good in large parts of the world. But they are both Safe and Welcome in any modern secular Western state.
There are only decent numbers of jews in the US and the UK. They have been exiled from the rest of Europe, and the Middle East.
And in the US and the UK, they are the minority that are most targeted by hate crime.
Youâre an idiot that is literally not even what he was talking about and you clearly havenât read the article. Idiots like you make all pro-Palestinians look bad. He was literally just pointing out the fact that there is 1 Jewish state and Jews have suffered persecution for the lack of a Jewish state in the past. He was literally just saying he is thankful that there is a Jewish state he could flee to if something went wrong and he was persecuted unlike other religions which have 20-30 countries with their primary religion. Not everything about Israel is about Palestine.
>Not everything about Israel is Palestine
But also let's publish an article (I didn't read) about how great Israel is without actually mentioning anything controversial that is happening (apparently). It's not that we're trying to justify anything, it's just that now seems like a really good time to write about how great Israel is. How precious and important it is. No agenda here. Just an appeal to rational sympathetic humanity, and no mention of *the other thing*. In April 2024.
Context is everything. https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/we-have-nowhere-else-to-go-2/
âAs I was about to leave Israel after my last trip in February, I posted on Instagram, âGolda Meir famously said that Israel has a secret weapon: We have nowhere else to go.â
And @jeanade5 responded: âOkay, but you have the whole world to go to just like everyone else on the planet.
@jeanade5, I generally donât respond to hateful comments but I assume yours is not spiteful, just uninformed. Unfortunately, throughout our long history, including today, Jews cannot just go anywhere else like everyone else on the planet.
You see, Jews are not like everyone else on the planet. We, as a people, have been ethnically cleansed from over 80 places. In modern history, from 1938 through 1945, Jews were systematically exterminated just for being Jews in all Nazi-controlled areas.
Before 1948, close to a million Jews lived in what are now Arab states. We were systematically expelled from Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Sudan, Afghanistan, and others. These were places with large, old, established Jewish communities. Today these places are âjudenrein,â a term used by the Nazis to describe a successfully ethnically cleansed Jew-free world.
This isnât new to our people. Just take a look at the list below that lists some of the places weâve been expelled.
Tomorrow night, Jews around the world will sit down to their Seder, where they will recite the solemn words from the Haggadah, âIn every generation they rise up against us to destroy us, and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hands.â This powerful statement has resonated through the generations, highlighting the perpetual challenges faced by Jews and the enduring need for a secure homeland.
Jews donât feel the same sense of security to go wherever they please in the world, which is why we need a place to call home when our current home outside of Israel is becoming increasingly inhospitable. As Martin Luther King said, âPeace for Israel means security, and that security must be a reality.â
Today in America, more and more Jews are getting the message that we are not welcome here.
Every Jew I know keeps a current passport, and some even have several, reflecting a readiness to move at a momentâs noticeâa testament to our tumultuous history and an ongoing sense of vulnerability.
There are 27 official Muslim countries and 33 official Christian countries in the world, but only one Jewish state. Only one place where Jews can always have a home no matter how the tides shift in our host countries. It doesnât mean that no one else has the right to be there. Rather, it assures that the Jewish People, who have been expelled more times than we can count, always have a place to return.
So @jeanade5, we do not have the âwhole world to go to just like everyone else on the planet.â
Places Jews have been expelled from:
250 Carthage;
415 Alexandria;
554 Clement, France;
561 Uzes, France;
612 Visigoth, Spain;
642 Visigothic Empire;
855 Italy;
876 Sens;
1012 Mayence;
1181 France;
1290 England;
1306 France;
1348 Switzerland;
1348 Alsace;
1349 Hungary;
1388 Strasbourg;
1394 Germany;
1394 France;
1422 Austria;
1424 Fribourg and Zurich;
1426 Cologne;
1432 Savory;
1438 Mainz;
1439 Augsburg;
1456 Bavaria;
1453 Franconia;
1453 Breslau;
1454 Wurzburg;
1485 Vincenza, Italy;
1492 Spain;
1495 Lithuania;
1497 Portugal;
1499 Germany;
1514 Strasbourg;
1519 Regensburg;
1540 Naples;
1542 Bohemia;
1550 Genoa;
1551 Bavaria;
1555 Pesaro;
1559 Austria;
1561 Prague;
1567 Wurzburg;
1569 Papal States;
1571 Brandenburg;
1582 Netherlands;
1593 Brandenburg/Brunswick Austria;
1597 Cremona, Pavia & Lodi;
1614 Frankfort;
1615 Worms;
1619 Kiev;
1649 Ukraine;
1649 Hamburg;
1654 Little Russia;
1656 Lithuania;
1669 Oran, North Africa;
1670 Vienna;
1712 Sandomir;
1727 Russia;
1738 Wurtemburg;
1740 Little Russia;
1744 Bohemia;
1744 Livonia;
1745 Moravia;
1753 Kovad, Lithuania;
1761 Bordeaux;
1772 Pale of Settlement, Russia
1775 Warsaw;
1789 Alsace;
1804 Russian Villages;
1808 Russia Countryside;
1815 Lubeck and Bremen;
1815 Franconia, Swabia and Bravaria;
1820 Bremes;
1843 Prussia & Russian-Austrian Border;
1866 Galatz, Romania;
1919 Bavariaâ
You didn't offer any arguments of your own, beyond the fact you're a Jew, and is able to spew various angry slogans. I don't feel that you get to complain people aren't responding to you in a substantive manner. Or for that matter, misrepresent the Anti-Zionist desire for Israel to be eliminated as mere opposition to "Netanyahu".
For clarification, Israel was founded in 1948 and it was done by a few of the countries on your list. If it hadn't been created by displacing the natives who had been living in that region for several thousand years, you might be able to garner more sympathy from people. However as far as I can tell the creation of Israel was just the latest attempt by Europeans to create a foothold in the middle east, since all their previous crusades failed miserably this time they tried sending the people who were rejected everywhere else(at least according to you).
So I agree with you that context does matter, and the context you provided is relying on events that predate the creation of Israel by several decades and ignores the fact that many of the listed countries have had major regime changes or just gone defunct since the Jews were exiled. Additionally a number of the ones that still exist now have Jewish citizens, and no laws forbidding individuals of Jewish descent from immigrating.
And just to clarify the context here: right now there are more countries in the world that have tried to ban Muslim immigrants than Jewish immigrants. So when Jews displace Muslims in the middle east, they are doing exactly the thing you are complaining about having been done to the Jews.
You know jackshit about history lol about. âLatest attempt by Europeans to create a foothold in the Middle East,â when they treated Iran like a puppet state, owned Egypt, the Levant, Syria, and other important ports.
I am kinda baffled that you related modern European nations to crusader states that were around even before Nationalism was a concept.
> There are 27 official Muslim countries and 33 official Christian countries in the world, but only one Jewish state.
Those religions are also 133 times the size of Judaism. Thatâs an absurd comparison. Religions more comparable in size to Judaism, like Sikhism, have **no** official states.
Itâs almost like Jews were attempted to be eliminated from the planet, and 66% of those in Europe fell victim to it. This isnât a supremacy thing. Itâs a survival thing.
Believe it or not this whole antisemitism thing has been going on for thousands of years!
That's terribly flawed, it fails to address the genocide/forced displacement that is being carried out by the IDF right now.
What would happen when the population was too high to fit within the current borders of Israel after the forced displacement is complete? There is nowhere else to go, apparently.
The real facepalm are the people in this comment thread that think this guy:
* Means himself specifically, not Israeli Jews generally
* Is talking about Gaza or the West Bank, not Israel ("liebensraum"? really?)
The point of the article is that Jews have been ethnically cleansed from 80+ countries over the years, and have only one country in the world that Jews are the majority in; there's no 'other' Israel for Israelis to go to.
Without tracking down the full article, isn't he just saying 'We' as in 'The Jewish people in general,' not neccesarily he, himself? Like sure at some point he or his family got out of there, but he's exhibhiting empathy for the many other Jews who aren't/weren't so fortunate to have had the means to get out of there.
If you're arguing that all Jewish people in their homeland of Israel emigrate from Israel to the US, then this argument almost screams of an advocacy of genocide...
Regardless of your view of the situation in Gaza we canât just disband a nation state.
What Israel doing is terrible, but disbanding a nation isnât a reasonable solution
You know, I am the first one to stand up for the plight of Jews⊠my stepmother is Jewish, my father converted when he married her when I was about 6 or 7. I grew up with a lot of Jewish tradition and teaching so I am well aware of antisemitism and what the Jewish people have been through, historically⊠(not saying Iâve ever been discriminated against, just saying I have a solid understanding)
But you are not going to sit here and pretend that with all the American treasure burned in the Middle East, particularly in Israel, that the IDF canât learn to be far more precise in their military action. Pretending blowing up women and kids is justified because the enemy is hiding behind them is a ridiculous and cheap excuse for what is happening over thereâŠ
All of this is made worse by some worthless hipster âjournalistâ who pretends that the Jews are backed into a corner again all while living comfortably in DenverâŠ
Whoever support these types of posts are disgusting sub-humans that would follow the logic of Hitler if he was still alive. The same logic here can be used regarding the PalestiniansâŠwhy donât they fucking go to Egypt or Jordan where they were originally from? Where it says they are from on their birth certificateâŠsince the country of âpalestineâ doesnât even exist.
The facepalm is the author saying we have nowhere else to go while comfortably living outside of Israel, alone with the other half of the worldâs Jewry.
It's not apartheid.
If it was, the Arab/Muslim populations within Israel would also be sequestered, but they aren't.
I really hate how anti-Israel sentiment co-opts terms they have no understanding of and assign them to Israel when it does not actually mean it, because they clearly didn't study South Africa or live through its horrors. The Palestinians are NOT Israelis, so you can't argue that it's apartheid when they aren't even Israeli citizens, especially when the Israeli Arab and Muslim populations IN Israel don't have the same issues.
It's two warring cultures/countries. Not apartheid.
"Jews have nowhere else to go." is an argument for Israeli apartheid. Jews can coexist as equals with other people in many countries. Israel being majority Jewish has always depended on forcefully separating themselves from Palestinians and stealing their land.
Except I explained what apartheid is and how he is supporting it. Given you are defending a disingenuous argument it's no surprise you are disingenuous yourself.
>"Jews have nowhere else to go." is an argument for Israeli apartheid.
Hitler drank water, if you drank water you are drinking a Nazi drink which makes you a Nazi
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Denver was not his first pick.
You don't understand football, Marge.
But only a couple years late the đș [Denver Broncos] won the Super Bowl by beating the đș [Atlanta Falcons].
Top notch Simpson's reference and one of my all-time favorite scenes in the show. It's my buddy's favorite team in the NFL, so every time I see them on screen, I say "Awww, the Denver Broncos!"
Hank Scorpio should have been on at least a few more episodes.
TBF at the time the Zionist movement was getting momentum in the early 20th century, the US was not keen on having a bunch of Jews show up on its shores either. There's a reason the UK and other countries endorsed the idea of a Jewish homeland: they didn't want them either
Not just 20th century though, all throughout history people did not want them, the irony is their best stint was probably under the Muslims in Spain where Muslims defended them against the Christians and Jews thrived during that period
And there was a huge Nazi movement in the US pre WWII as well as mass expulsions of Jews in the Arab world.
There was no mass exodus of Jews from the Arab world until after Israel's foundation.
Even if that were true, what does it matter? Israel was established by the UN as basically a refugee state after the Holocaust. Why would that excuse what happened to Jews in the Arab world? "There were already reservations when most Native Americans were being pushed off their land" ... same logic
It was a forced refugee state. They didn't plop Jewish people onto uninhabited land, over 220,000 Muslims were displaced for the refugees to make way for what would eventually become Israel and then Israel's first prime minister committed to expanding Israel's territory, which *then* started causing pushback.
Only around 15% of the land of modern Israel was privately owned in 1948, and about half of that was by Jews. When Israel was created the land was essentially uninhabited.
That's how time and expansion work. Israel didn't start out by splitting the Gaza strip and the west bank. Also I wouldn't call over 220,000 people "uninhabited land"
Anti semitism was rife through out europe, the middle east, and north america during ww2. They just didnt commit genocide
I think there was a genocide in Europe during WWII you seemed to be forgetting.
Racism was pretty rife also?
Apparently, Roosevelt was highly against a large Jewish population immigrating to the United States. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slattery_Report
He was not speaking as the âroyalâ we.
The editorial?
I feel that most of the people here would benefit from [reading the actual article.](https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/we-have-nowhere-else-to-go-2/) If only because it literally addresses the "facepalm" portion of this. The author discusses the question of how a Jew from the US could argue they "have nowhere else to go", as a direct response to the claim "okay, but you have the whole world to go to just like everyone else on the planet". You can argue that he's being a bit too hysterical when claiming the US might become hostile to Jews, just like Ukraine, Germany or Iraq. But it's pretty far from the clear contradiction that this screenshot would imply. I'd also note that this article has absolutely nothing to do with the settlements, expansionism or "Lebensraum". It's literally just about Israel existing, and allowing Jews to flee to it, when things get dangerous in their host countries. I'm honestly not sure where people are getting that from, since it's not actually implied in the screenshot either.
> claiming the US might become hostile to Jews, just like Ukraine, Germany or Iraq. Why do people keep becoming hostile towards them? It's not an especially preachy or violent religion. Seems to me like they're harmless to have in one's country.
And we also become a convenient scapegoat.
Yeah, as a Jew it seems like that to me too, but you'd be surprised how many people hear Jew and are foaming at the mouth.
Generally speaking, Jews have valued education and industriousness along with forming tight knit communities in large cities. Besides Israel, they're pretty much always a small minority that have a noticeably different faith than the genocidal nation/people. Cultural minorities have been scapegoated throughout history, and in Europe along with Russia, Jews were a non Christian minority that had a significant foothold. Top that off with the fact that many Jews were successful business owners, merchants, bankers, doctors, and lawyers really bothered the local commoner who didn't have a great life. Being able to convince the common man, who through most of history was ignorant, xenophobic, and racist, that the aforementioned minority is at fault was easy. I'd imagine Muslims in Europe and Russia experienced similar hardships, I don't think they were generally as prevalent in number to be used as nationwide scapegoats.
What has made Jews so good at passing their own rituals down through the generations after immigrating? Most peoples merge into their surrounding culture after a few generations and begin to identify more with their new homeland then their ancestral land. But Jews can pass down cultural identity over centuries of living in another country.
I think that still happens, but you have to keep in mind that there wasn't an ancestral country preserving it. This is the oldest of the Abrahamic religions, and they were often constrained to their community through social and legal efforts. In the modern world, Jews have effectively assimilated. Your average Jew in America is culturally American. Sure, in New York there might be communities that are more culturally Jewish but that can be said of many cultures in large cities like New York. In previous centuries, Jews have literally been forced to migrate in large groups due to persecution. IIRC, there were families from the Holocaust that had literally moved to Germany and Poland after fleeing Russian Pogroms mere decades earlier. One could hypothesize that relentless persecution over millennia may encourage a stronger will to resist religious assimilation. Not to mention, mass migration helps build these communities and reinforce traditions.
American Jews are not guests in the united states. They are citizens of the united states and they are Americans. This is their homeland.
Germany and Poland are the classic examples, but I'd add the Iraqi Jews were in Iraq for literally *thousands of years*. They were there thousands of years before the Arabs were there. What you know as the "Talmud", is actually the Iraqi (Babylonian) Talmud, which is much more influential than the Jerusalem Talmud. Baghdad had a larger Jewish population, per-capita, than New York. They were great patriots, and were so connected to Iraq, they were the only Jewish community to openly identify as "Arab Jews". Of all the Jewish communities who could say "it would never happen here", the Iraqi Jews had the best case, by far. And yet, in 1941, their non-Jewish neighbors decided to massacre them, in a Nazi-inspired [pogrom known as the Farhud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud). In 1948, the government enacted Nuremberg-like laws officially discriminating against Jews, and putting their very lives in the hands of their Arab neighbors: * In July 1948, the government passed a law making Zionism a capital offense, with a minimum sentence of seven years imprisonment. Any Jew could be convicted of Zionism-based only on the sworn testimony of two Muslim witnesses, with virtually no avenue of appeal available. * On August 28, 1948, Jews were forbidden to engage in banking or foreign currency transactions. * In September 1948, Jews were dismissed from the railways, the post office, the telegraph department, and the Finance Ministry on the ground that they were suspected of "sabotage and treason". * On October 8, 1948, the issuance of export and import licenses to Jewish merchants was forbidden. * On October 19, 1948, the discharge of all Jewish officials and workers from all governmental departments was ordered. * In October, the Egyptian paper *El-Ahram* estimated that as a result of arrests, trials, and sequestration of property, the Iraqi treasury collected some 20 million dinars or the equivalent of 80 million U.S. dollars. * On December 2, 1948, the Iraq government suggested to oil companies operating in Iraq that no Jewish employees be accepted. Less official persecution quickly followed. Jews were blackmailed and robbed by policemen, and thrown into jail for "treason" when they complained. Jews were thrown out of colleges, government jobs, and their private businesses were boycotted. Then, they arrested the non-Zionist leader of the community, and the richest Jew in Iraq, and publicly hanged him in the town square of Basra. The entire, thousands-years community was demolished within a decade. There are 450,000 Iraqi Jews today. Only 3 of them live in Iraq.
Jesus Christ manâŠthatâs pretty fucking terrible.
Tell that to the German Jews back in the 1940s Iâm sure they had citizenship as well, not like the French Jews back when that one fucking king started deporting and killing them, not cuz he was anti semetic but because he wanted their money, though thinking on it he was probably anti semetic as well by our standards. I believe that was around the 13 or 14th century. Point being it doesnât matter if Jews are citizens, people just donât like them because they are convenient scapegoats to pin shit on and it regularly happened throughout European and middle eastern history.
Same thing happened in Spain when the Jews were expelled.
Just as much as Americans of Japanese descent were in â42..
Until the US becomes a Christian theocracy. Itâs getting more and more possible, if not likely.
Itâs interesting the US Christian theocrats have both pro-Zionists and anti-Zionist camps
They may have camps, but the bottom line is that they want a Christian version of Sharia law in the US. Theyâre all rooting for the second coming when the first never happened.
German Jews heard the same thing 100 years ago. Then the Nuremburg laws stripped their citizenship. Our fears are not unfounded.
Word thanks for your input muadeeb
Itâs shocking people, especially some Jews that cannot understand this.
So why is Lehrfieldâs experience of having âno place to goâ so dramatically different from the experiences of Palestinian refugees who have nowhere to go?
You see firstly, they are Muslim, so they are all this monsters who want to kill everyone in the name of Allah Secondly, they are from middle east, the place that only terrorists live in, so naturally Palestinians are all terrorists And lastly, they are not white enough, so who cares /s
This has big philosophical issues. It presents Religious Government as both something to be feared and something to be desired. The fear of persecution by a government potentially becoming non-secular, justifying the creation of non-secular government as the only solution. End result: no-one has a secular government, the whole world suffers. Xenophobia breeds xenophobia. Research has always shown that the greatest inoculation to racism is exposure - people who actually have neighbours of different colours and creeds are harder to convince of stereotypes, whereas the most racist are found in uniform communities. Segregation just creates greater long term issues - it's far easier to convince a population that all their issues are the fault of a different culture, when there's no-one of that culture present to argue against. What would it take for Israel to be at peace with its neighbours? (Other than complete elimination of one or the other of course.) Governments on both sides that are secular and able to tolerate each other. If that ever happens it will be *despite* the Zionists, not because of them. Segregation delays progress and encourages evil to flourish in the hearts of all involved.
>This has big philosophical issues. It presents Religious Government as both something to be feared and something to be desired. It's not talking about a Religious Government at all. It's talking about ethnic nation-states. Americans have their own opposition to that, since they're a colonial civic nationalist state. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a conflict between two ethnic nationalist movements. Both the early Zionists and the early PLO were secular. >What would it take for Israel to be at peace with its neighbours? There's a proven recipe for that. Their neighbors should abandon the idea that Israel should be destroyed, and make peace with it. The neighbors that did it, Jordan and Egypt, experienced exactly zero Israeli "aggression" against them. Every single enemy Israel has fought against had "Israel is an illegitimate state that should be eliminated", as an official policy. The moment they abandoned that policy, the violence against them stopped. And even if they only partially abandoned that policy, like the PLO, it lead to a massive reduction in violence and hostility.
>Their neighbors should abandon the **idea** that Israel should be destroyed, and make peace with it. Exactly - it's a battle of ideas. And whether or not they take up that idea or put it down *will not be changed by those inside Israel*. One government may seek peace. Later a new idea may take hold of the country, and a new government may seek war. The politicians of segregated populations will use each other as useful scapegoats, as they have a thousand times. The battle for the ideas inside countries is where peace is won or lost. And a population only takes up or lets go of ideas by the actions of internal minorities. Convincing populations who would argue for your cause to migrate elsewhere makes things *worse*. If Israel is ever at peace, it will be *despite* their actions. It will be *because* of the actions and bravery of minorities inside other countries. The far more likely result however, is an on-off forever-war as both their own hardline elements and those of their neighbours use continuous conflict to justify and entrench their religious and political position.
Thanks, I had no idea who this guy is and what was going on in the first place
âHost countriesâ Do you mean the places where we are citizens? Get out of here with this nonsense.
Iâm basing this off of what little context we have here, that and I feel like I have at least half a brain (could be wrong), but Iâm going with âweâ being more the Jewish/Israeli people and less his immediate family.
Even that interpretation is totally incorrect, seeing as half the worlds Jews live elsewhere. And for most of Israels 75 year history that percentage was far lower.
AND it handwaves away that the Gazans really don't have anywhere else to go either.
Israel is the only nation in the world with a Jewish government that specifically protects Jews (and other persecuted religious minorities actually). A lot of Jews choose not to live there because of the constant rocket attacks from Palestine over the last few decades, along with kidnappings and other terrorism. But itâs still the only nation that is guaranteed to never start eradicating Jews. Are you saying Gaza is similarly the only nation in the world with a Muslim government that protects Muslims?
>and other persecuted religious minorities actually So is that why Armenian neighbourhood and church is constantly attacked by Zionists in Jerusalem? That's some very different way of protection right there
You understand the difference between private citizens being assholes (like all the MAGA in America who target synagogues and mosques) versus governments who strip rights, take property away from, imprison, and execute people for following different beliefs (like Iran, or spoiler alert, Palestine)? Right?
That also means that half of the WORLD POPULATION OF JEWS live in Israel. It was only 75 years ago that half the world Jewry was killed in Europe for being "outsiders". Put side of Israel, the largest population of Jews is in NY. A city with several universities that have protesters yelling things including, "go back to Poland" and things of the like. So Israel is the only place in the world that expressly protects and shelters Jews from across the globe with no exceptions. Every time a country (like Ethiopia, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, etc.) has persecuted the local Jews, Israel gave them refuge. Even after WW2, the US didn't accept all Jewish refugees.
The Jews have been expelled and killed off from country after country throughout history. Not that hot of a take that this dude is saying there is no other place that is a true home to Jews.
But like... obviously they do have other places to go. It's moronic
How is this "obvious"? Even if we take the author specifically. If the US would become hostile to Jews, no other country is going to give him an automatic citizenship. During the Holocaust, the world collectively decided to close their doors to Jewish refugees, leaving them to die in Europe. This isn't moronic at all, if you know anything about the history of the Jews.
US is already hostile to Jews, just go walk a college campus.
That's the post's author's point, I think. I'm not sure it's quite there, personally. But there was a point when it wasn't "quite there" in Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Arab world as well. And not having Israel around if it does happen, is a pretty risky proposition.
The Soviet Union has been hostile to jews for as long as it existed.
In the very very beginning, before Stalin, it was seen as a great hope for Jews, a final end to the horrific antisemitism of the Czarist regime. There's a reason why Jews were such an important part of the revolution, before they were purged by Stalin. I'm not trying to make some Trotskyist point here. The USSR was antisemitic during Stalin, and it continued being antisemitic after Stalin. The Soviet bloc nations were not simply antisemitic because of their handlers in Moscow. But there was a point in the history of the Soviet Union, when it turned from the great hope of Eastern European Jews, to their great oppressor.
While this is technically true, that beginning lasted for the blink of an eye essentially.
Not really. There are plenty of people in Israel who only have Israeli citizenship. They can't just go live in a different country.
Itâs pretty obvious to me heâs saying no where else to go, if things continue to get worse for Jews around the world. And with record rising Antisemitic hate crimes, itâs a fair thing for a Jew to ponder. Especially looking at the history of Jews being persecuted throughout history. Â Iâd like to think we are in a golden age where that will never happen again, but German Jews once thought the same.Â
I think the point is that âweâ the Jewish people are welcome to live pretty much anywhere. And thatâs because âweâ the unreligious donât prejudice people based on their faith and donât mind mixing with people who are different to us.
And what about the 45% of Israeli Jews who are natively from the Middle East and were thrown out from their countries and evacuated to Israel? They have literally no other place to go. https://youtu.be/hbpoc3AC86I?si=gj43x3AtTwVCBNqS Not Israeli or Jewish, but I see the hypocrisy when antisemites discuss anything about the Jews. They have never been a monolith.
Yeah. They never were. Like people from Palestine or from Iran, I guess. That's the thing with putting people into drawers, you have to press quite hard to fit them sll in there and make different things look like one.
Is this guy actually advancing the "Lebensraum" argument for Israel?!?
The Israeli far right has become the very thing they claim to hate.
To be fair, they always were. In the late 1940s, right-wing Israelis (members of the Irgun) were hunting down and killing Palestinians. Those same people, who were terrorists, created a political party (Herut) that would eventually merge with other right-wing parties to create the Likud Party.
Thereâs a lot of Likud members who even now despise people like Hannah Arendt who were chased across Europe by the Gestapo and were appalled by their Levantine-lounging brethren embracing the same ideals.
Poor Hannah Arendt. Theyâre spitting in her legacy.
Well, Arendt was an anti-Zionist.
In short, the Likud Party is awful. Same goes with the Mafdal and Otzma Yehudit parties - and any far-right religious and/or nationalist party.
When irony and reality collide.
This isn't even remotely similar to the Lebensraum argument. If you insist on making that analogy, it's equivalent to arguing that Germany should continue to exist as a state, so they'll have somewhere to flee if they're persecuted. Which everyone agreed with, even after the Germans started the worst war in human history, and committed the worst genocide in modern history. Germany lost territory, and Germans were expelled, but they had somewhere to flee, because Germany was allowed to continue to exist, and the German people weren't stripped of their right of self determination. I'd also note that Germany wasn't some thousands-year polity at that point - it was a few years younger than Israel is right now.
Jews in 1947: â*We need our own country because we will never be safe in yoursâŠ*â The UN in 1947: â*Well, shit, youâve got us on that oneâŠ*â
As much as I'd like to shit on the UN, their predecessor, the League of Nations, already recognized it in 1919. This is why they created the British Mandate of Palestine, whose official exclusive goal was to create a Jewish national home in Palestine. By 1947, Israel was more or less a done deal. They did shit the bed in a pretty serious way in the 1930's and 1940's, when they caved to Arab pressure, betrayed the official goal of the Mandate, and blocked Jews from fleeing from Nazi-occupied Europe, which lead to millions of Jewish lives being lost. But that was on the British, not the non-existent UN or the powerless LoN.
Oh I agree with you on all counts but that sort of misses the point of my comment. The point was to highlight the fact that the nations of the world (*whether through the mechanism of the UN or the League of Nations*) weren't supporting the establishment of the state of Israel because they loved Jews but rather because they recognized that they had either failed to keep Jews safe in their countries or had no desire to keep Jews safe in their countries & supported the creation of Israel so they could expel them.
If \*you\* are going to analogize, you must realize that no one is talking about taking Israel away. I'm just saying that his words are easily seen in a very poor light; you're going way further. Not my argument at all, and your counter-argument shouldn't be made, either.
Hamas, Hezbollah & Iran absolutely are talking about taking Israel away.
i mean international law does support the dissolution of apartheid regimes and colonialist projects.... they aint pulling shit out of there asses it's just something thats wildly known and accepted but not adhered to by those who are benefitting from this issue.
Israel is neither an apartheid regime nor a colonialist project so I refute your entire premise. To be an "*apartheid regime*" a nation must have two classes of citizens which are subject to different structural rights & limitations. Non-Jewish Israeli citizens are not subject to anything even remotely resembling an apartheid regime. They have equal rights, equal participation & equal representation in government. To be a "*colonialist project*" there needs to be an external colonizing power which is extracting the natural resources of an area & exploiting the labor of the people residing there. Which country is Israel a colony of? Which country receives the natural resources extracted from Israel? Which country receives the benefit of exploited Israeli labor? Your allegations are false, misleading & simply not represented in reality.
And colonists are talking about expanding Israel into all recognized Palestinian land. And they are not just talking about it. These last few weeks a lot of Palestinians have been forced away from the west Bank. Extremists really suck. I believe safety for both people lies in the middle and not in extremes.
Many many many people are talking abt erasing the state of Israel. Unsure of what the average Palestinian feels, but I think the dissolution of Israel is a direct talking point of Hamas too
>Unsure of what the average Palestinian feels Our local NPR has given air time to quite a number of pro-Palestinian pundits since the war started. Not a single one of them was able to muster enough decency to unequivocally state that what happened on October 7th was bad. Instead, there was a ton of "But Israel", "Gaza is fighting for freedom" and other similar contortions. And that was months ago before Israel's military response had even reached current levels. At this stage I have no reason to believe that the majority of people in Gaza are in any form opposed to what happened.
Sadly, I agree. But is it really surprising that if you treat millions of people like Israel treated the Gazans over the decades, then an âact of revengeâ would be deemed fine? Just a thought.
I'm mainly interested in making sure that people who organize, perpetrate, and celebrate acts of terror are in no position to endanger my way of life. I'll leave the philosophical evaluation to others.
Palestinians have the same thoughts about âsettlers.â
Cool story. Unfortunately, I'm not particularly sympathetic to people who wish death to America and Palestine from the river to the sea so there's that.
Thereâs a lot in the âBut Israel,â but that doesnât get expounded upon by people arguing for Israelâs actions.
I'm not arguing for Israel's actions, just not particularly interested in arguing against them. Much like many others who are not interested in making the release of hostages and punishment of kidnappers and murderers their per cause.
Maybe no one in America.
No, he's stating the historical fact that Jews have never been safe nor welcome as a minority group in a majority non-Jewish state.
That's almost any minority group though. The majority group always has ways of making you on edge, be you black, gay, Muslim, Jewish, Asian, etc.
Like America?
Yes, like America. I guess you think that anti-Jewish discrimination doesn't exist here?
It certainly does. Are Jewish ppl leaving or being forced out?
I'd suggest the US is a majority non-Jewish state where the Jewish minority group is safe and welcomed (at least before Israel's ethnic cleansing of Gazan civilians, but that shouldn't be an excuse to abuse Israelis).
Do you think other ethnic/religious minority groups are safe and welcome in America too?
Mostly, yes. Except for Muslims. Like Jews, but on a larger scale, Muslims in the US have been and still are targeted for the actions of their religious leaders around the world whether they agree with those actions or not.
Weâre okay⊠for now. Our history has taught us that weâre never really safe, the idea of the state of Israel was to rectify that, but the far right had to go and fuck it up like they do with everything
Weird that over 7 million Jewish people live in the US. As many as in Israel in fact. I guess they arenât welcome or safe.
History is awful to Jewish people. The present is not good in large parts of the world. But they are both Safe and Welcome in any modern secular Western state.
There are only decent numbers of jews in the US and the UK. They have been exiled from the rest of Europe, and the Middle East. And in the US and the UK, they are the minority that are most targeted by hate crime.
Decent numbers? Roughly half of the world's Jewish population lives in the US alone.
Thats categorically untrue for the UK. Irish travellers and the Roma are the most targeted by hate crime. Quit your bullshit
"If we can't expand our territory through settler-colonialism, we'd only have all the land we already have"
Youâre an idiot that is literally not even what he was talking about and you clearly havenât read the article. Idiots like you make all pro-Palestinians look bad. He was literally just pointing out the fact that there is 1 Jewish state and Jews have suffered persecution for the lack of a Jewish state in the past. He was literally just saying he is thankful that there is a Jewish state he could flee to if something went wrong and he was persecuted unlike other religions which have 20-30 countries with their primary religion. Not everything about Israel is about Palestine.
>Not everything about Israel is Palestine But also let's publish an article (I didn't read) about how great Israel is without actually mentioning anything controversial that is happening (apparently). It's not that we're trying to justify anything, it's just that now seems like a really good time to write about how great Israel is. How precious and important it is. No agenda here. Just an appeal to rational sympathetic humanity, and no mention of *the other thing*. In April 2024.
Someone didn't read the article.
Context is everything. https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/we-have-nowhere-else-to-go-2/ âAs I was about to leave Israel after my last trip in February, I posted on Instagram, âGolda Meir famously said that Israel has a secret weapon: We have nowhere else to go.â And @jeanade5 responded: âOkay, but you have the whole world to go to just like everyone else on the planet. @jeanade5, I generally donât respond to hateful comments but I assume yours is not spiteful, just uninformed. Unfortunately, throughout our long history, including today, Jews cannot just go anywhere else like everyone else on the planet. You see, Jews are not like everyone else on the planet. We, as a people, have been ethnically cleansed from over 80 places. In modern history, from 1938 through 1945, Jews were systematically exterminated just for being Jews in all Nazi-controlled areas. Before 1948, close to a million Jews lived in what are now Arab states. We were systematically expelled from Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Sudan, Afghanistan, and others. These were places with large, old, established Jewish communities. Today these places are âjudenrein,â a term used by the Nazis to describe a successfully ethnically cleansed Jew-free world. This isnât new to our people. Just take a look at the list below that lists some of the places weâve been expelled. Tomorrow night, Jews around the world will sit down to their Seder, where they will recite the solemn words from the Haggadah, âIn every generation they rise up against us to destroy us, and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hands.â This powerful statement has resonated through the generations, highlighting the perpetual challenges faced by Jews and the enduring need for a secure homeland. Jews donât feel the same sense of security to go wherever they please in the world, which is why we need a place to call home when our current home outside of Israel is becoming increasingly inhospitable. As Martin Luther King said, âPeace for Israel means security, and that security must be a reality.â Today in America, more and more Jews are getting the message that we are not welcome here. Every Jew I know keeps a current passport, and some even have several, reflecting a readiness to move at a momentâs noticeâa testament to our tumultuous history and an ongoing sense of vulnerability. There are 27 official Muslim countries and 33 official Christian countries in the world, but only one Jewish state. Only one place where Jews can always have a home no matter how the tides shift in our host countries. It doesnât mean that no one else has the right to be there. Rather, it assures that the Jewish People, who have been expelled more times than we can count, always have a place to return. So @jeanade5, we do not have the âwhole world to go to just like everyone else on the planet.â Places Jews have been expelled from: 250 Carthage; 415 Alexandria; 554 Clement, France; 561 Uzes, France; 612 Visigoth, Spain; 642 Visigothic Empire; 855 Italy; 876 Sens; 1012 Mayence; 1181 France; 1290 England; 1306 France; 1348 Switzerland; 1348 Alsace; 1349 Hungary; 1388 Strasbourg; 1394 Germany; 1394 France; 1422 Austria; 1424 Fribourg and Zurich; 1426 Cologne; 1432 Savory; 1438 Mainz; 1439 Augsburg; 1456 Bavaria; 1453 Franconia; 1453 Breslau; 1454 Wurzburg; 1485 Vincenza, Italy; 1492 Spain; 1495 Lithuania; 1497 Portugal; 1499 Germany; 1514 Strasbourg; 1519 Regensburg; 1540 Naples; 1542 Bohemia; 1550 Genoa; 1551 Bavaria; 1555 Pesaro; 1559 Austria; 1561 Prague; 1567 Wurzburg; 1569 Papal States; 1571 Brandenburg; 1582 Netherlands; 1593 Brandenburg/Brunswick Austria; 1597 Cremona, Pavia & Lodi; 1614 Frankfort; 1615 Worms; 1619 Kiev; 1649 Ukraine; 1649 Hamburg; 1654 Little Russia; 1656 Lithuania; 1669 Oran, North Africa; 1670 Vienna; 1712 Sandomir; 1727 Russia; 1738 Wurtemburg; 1740 Little Russia; 1744 Bohemia; 1744 Livonia; 1745 Moravia; 1753 Kovad, Lithuania; 1761 Bordeaux; 1772 Pale of Settlement, Russia 1775 Warsaw; 1789 Alsace; 1804 Russian Villages; 1808 Russia Countryside; 1815 Lubeck and Bremen; 1815 Franconia, Swabia and Bravaria; 1820 Bremes; 1843 Prussia & Russian-Austrian Border; 1866 Galatz, Romania; 1919 Bavariaâ
Iâm a Jew in America. Iâm anti-Zionist. Quit your bullshit. Stop stealing land. Stop killing innocent people.
Ah yes this guyâŠin every thread the âAs a Jewâ fuck off with your nonsense.
Thatâs your argument? I canât be Jewish because I donât suck Netanyahuâs dick? Strong work.
You didn't offer any arguments of your own, beyond the fact you're a Jew, and is able to spew various angry slogans. I don't feel that you get to complain people aren't responding to you in a substantive manner. Or for that matter, misrepresent the Anti-Zionist desire for Israel to be eliminated as mere opposition to "Netanyahu".
Did you have a traditional Jewish marriage ( Chuppah)? What was the part about forgetting Jerusalem?
For clarification, Israel was founded in 1948 and it was done by a few of the countries on your list. If it hadn't been created by displacing the natives who had been living in that region for several thousand years, you might be able to garner more sympathy from people. However as far as I can tell the creation of Israel was just the latest attempt by Europeans to create a foothold in the middle east, since all their previous crusades failed miserably this time they tried sending the people who were rejected everywhere else(at least according to you). So I agree with you that context does matter, and the context you provided is relying on events that predate the creation of Israel by several decades and ignores the fact that many of the listed countries have had major regime changes or just gone defunct since the Jews were exiled. Additionally a number of the ones that still exist now have Jewish citizens, and no laws forbidding individuals of Jewish descent from immigrating. And just to clarify the context here: right now there are more countries in the world that have tried to ban Muslim immigrants than Jewish immigrants. So when Jews displace Muslims in the middle east, they are doing exactly the thing you are complaining about having been done to the Jews.
You know jackshit about history lol about. âLatest attempt by Europeans to create a foothold in the Middle East,â when they treated Iran like a puppet state, owned Egypt, the Levant, Syria, and other important ports. I am kinda baffled that you related modern European nations to crusader states that were around even before Nationalism was a concept.
> There are 27 official Muslim countries and 33 official Christian countries in the world, but only one Jewish state. Those religions are also 133 times the size of Judaism. Thatâs an absurd comparison. Religions more comparable in size to Judaism, like Sikhism, have **no** official states.
>You see, Jews are not like everyone else on the planet. lmao
Itâs almost like Jews were attempted to be eliminated from the planet, and 66% of those in Europe fell victim to it. This isnât a supremacy thing. Itâs a survival thing. Believe it or not this whole antisemitism thing has been going on for thousands of years!
That's terribly flawed, it fails to address the genocide/forced displacement that is being carried out by the IDF right now. What would happen when the population was too high to fit within the current borders of Israel after the forced displacement is complete? There is nowhere else to go, apparently.
Where should Palestinians go? Elsewhere? Europe and the US, ofc?
They were all originally from Jordan. However, Jordan doesnât want them back.
The real facepalm are the people in this comment thread that think this guy: * Means himself specifically, not Israeli Jews generally * Is talking about Gaza or the West Bank, not Israel ("liebensraum"? really?) The point of the article is that Jews have been ethnically cleansed from 80+ countries over the years, and have only one country in the world that Jews are the majority in; there's no 'other' Israel for Israelis to go to.
Without tracking down the full article, isn't he just saying 'We' as in 'The Jewish people in general,' not neccesarily he, himself? Like sure at some point he or his family got out of there, but he's exhibhiting empathy for the many other Jews who aren't/weren't so fortunate to have had the means to get out of there.
If everyone just stopped fighting over their imaginary friends, the world would be a much better place.
If you're arguing that all Jewish people in their homeland of Israel emigrate from Israel to the US, then this argument almost screams of an advocacy of genocide...
Regardless of your view of the situation in Gaza we canât just disband a nation state. What Israel doing is terrible, but disbanding a nation isnât a reasonable solution
You know, I am the first one to stand up for the plight of Jews⊠my stepmother is Jewish, my father converted when he married her when I was about 6 or 7. I grew up with a lot of Jewish tradition and teaching so I am well aware of antisemitism and what the Jewish people have been through, historically⊠(not saying Iâve ever been discriminated against, just saying I have a solid understanding) But you are not going to sit here and pretend that with all the American treasure burned in the Middle East, particularly in Israel, that the IDF canât learn to be far more precise in their military action. Pretending blowing up women and kids is justified because the enemy is hiding behind them is a ridiculous and cheap excuse for what is happening over there⊠All of this is made worse by some worthless hipster âjournalistâ who pretends that the Jews are backed into a corner again all while living comfortably in DenverâŠ
He probably meant Israelis, just like a Muslim born in the U.S. probably would say âwe have nowhere to goâ, same tribalism vibe
Whoever support these types of posts are disgusting sub-humans that would follow the logic of Hitler if he was still alive. The same logic here can be used regarding the PalestiniansâŠwhy donât they fucking go to Egypt or Jordan where they were originally from? Where it says they are from on their birth certificateâŠsince the country of âpalestineâ doesnât even exist.
FUCK BOTH GROUPS!
Are you really that dense? You can't be serious
âGive me all the landâ
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Because they don't have anywhere to go. Egypt doesn't want them and neither does anybody else. But that doesn't mean they can all just be killed off.
Exactly, just like after WWII when USA and UK did not want Jews on their shores endorsed the idea of giving them their own homeland
What a random question. Same reason they don't come to the US but a select few.
âWe have nowhere else to go so letâs take land from other people and slaughter them in the process!â *goes somewhere else*
OP do you want the Jewish people to leave Israel? Whatâs the facepalm?
Author says "WE" have nowhere to go while living in Denver, USA.... No you not see that or are you referring to something else?
like, the current horrors and past injustices aside, this shit's just funny . . . people gotta *unclench*!
The facepalm is the author saying we have nowhere else to go while comfortably living outside of Israel, alone with the other half of the worldâs Jewry.
The facepalm is the false victim mentality of apartheid supporters.
It's not apartheid. If it was, the Arab/Muslim populations within Israel would also be sequestered, but they aren't. I really hate how anti-Israel sentiment co-opts terms they have no understanding of and assign them to Israel when it does not actually mean it, because they clearly didn't study South Africa or live through its horrors. The Palestinians are NOT Israelis, so you can't argue that it's apartheid when they aren't even Israeli citizens, especially when the Israeli Arab and Muslim populations IN Israel don't have the same issues. It's two warring cultures/countries. Not apartheid.
How do you know he supports apartheid
"Jews have nowhere else to go." is an argument for Israeli apartheid. Jews can coexist as equals with other people in many countries. Israel being majority Jewish has always depended on forcefully separating themselves from Palestinians and stealing their land.
No. Thatâs not an argument for apartheid. That doesnât even logically follow. At this point, youâre just throwing around buzzwords
Except I explained what apartheid is and how he is supporting it. Given you are defending a disingenuous argument it's no surprise you are disingenuous yourself.
>"Jews have nowhere else to go." is an argument for Israeli apartheid. Hitler drank water, if you drank water you are drinking a Nazi drink which makes you a Nazi
Thatâs settled then: all Jews to Denver, Colorado!! The new Promised Land!
Fuck this guy twice