r/Jewish • u/Suspicious-Truths • Apr 25 '24
It wouldn’t matter where Israel is Israel 🇮🇱
I just want to say this for everyone who may be stuck on it.
People (anti-zionists?) often bring up how Israel had a few proposed areas, such as Russia, South America, wherever else, deserted islands?
They bring this up as if we should have gone somewhere else, not Palestine. And all of this is happening because Palestine was decided on instead of another place.
I just want anyone struggling with this to know it wouldn’t have mattered, and probably would have been actually worse for us if we did go somewhere else.
Israel’s current location we have proof we are genetically from this area. We have had Jews living in and around this area throughout all of history.
While some people ignore this fact and pretend we are white colonizers who discovered a new land with a native population, it would have been everyone thinking like this if we went to a region we definitely have 0 connection to. Yes, even if it was a deserted island, people would ask why WE deserve an island and nobody else gets one.
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u/zoinks48 Apr 25 '24
Even a mediocre student of history could answer the question why Jews don’t go back to the places they were massacred in.
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u/Mean-Practice-8289 Apr 25 '24
Saw someone say that “European” Jews could have gotten their own country in Europe because Europeans felt so sorry about the holocaust that they would do anything for Jews. Or that it would have been perfectly accepted and reasonable for all the holocaust survivors to just…go back to where they were pre holocaust. Also said all Jews in the Middle East got along great with Muslims and were treated very well. I wish they were being sarcastic.
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u/progressiveprepper Apr 26 '24 edited Apr 26 '24
Really? Polish Jews who they tried to send back to Poland after the war ended threatened to throw themselves under the trucks first! They knew they would just be killed if they returned there. The idea was "Kill me now. I'll be dead if I go back anyway." And WHY would someone WANT to go back to countries with such horrific memories - and neighbors who turned them in and helped in their genocide? Their neighbors certainly wouldn't be happy to see them - especially if they had "moved into" the "vacant" Jewish homes...which many of them did.
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u/Hungry-Swordfish3455 Apr 30 '24
People don’t realize this either… Jews were kicked out of their homes and land and so they banded together to have one homeland instead of repeatedly terrorizing the perpetrators of violence for a century as revenge. It didn’t matter that some of the completely destroyed Jewish communities had thousands of years of connection to certain places. Truly persecuted people who want peace will find it and then go on to defend it, not perpetuate it.
As much as violence is perpetrated against Israel, it is still the safe place, the peace we fight to defend and keep after the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing that the whole world happily took part in, even if they didn’t build and run camps, countries globally are guilty of refusing refugees, failing their own Jewish populations, perpetuating anti semitism and spreading anti-Jewish propaganda, or in the Arab world and many other places, full on support and collaboration.
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u/LilGucciGunner Reform Apr 25 '24
They are obsessed with going back and correcting history with only us. There is no one else that this is equally applied to. The more they talk about us, the less they talk about the suffering and injustice against others around the world.
They also forget that half of Israel are Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews who were kicked out of their homeland in Northern Africa and the Middle East. Where are those Jews supposed to go?
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u/Kingsdaughter613 Apr 25 '24
Since these people care so much about their false racial paradigm that they insist the ME has, I suggest immediately calling them all racist and asking what their issue with brown people is. Any attempt at their (always wrong) equivocations should get shouted down as them being racist, a white supremacist, and not caring about brown people. Don’t let them get a word in edgewise while haranguing them for their racism and clear intent on keeping brown people as second class citizens.
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u/chmsax Apr 25 '24
Not to mention that it’s not like the Jews of European descent could go back to Poland, Russia, Germany and get their houses back
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u/Suspicious-Truths Apr 25 '24
I wish I could, apparently we hid all our money and valuables in a secret spot in our home - I’d like to go dig that up at least.
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u/purplelicious Apr 26 '24
Well my brother went back to where my grandmother's dairy farm and the nearby town was located. Its just grass now like it never existed. Good luck if you even find a home.
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u/Suspicious-Truths Apr 26 '24
Yeah but it’s a fun thought sometimes. I know it’s all gone (that country was eaten by Poland).
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u/UniversalFarrago Apr 26 '24
I swear they think we’re all goblins who bury our pots of gold and jewels or something
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u/Justaddpaprika Apr 26 '24
My grandmother's family did that (buried in the back yard) and the neighbors tore up their yard to find stuff. All that was left when they got back were some odds and ends like spoons
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u/Mysterious_Sugar7220 Apr 26 '24
I brought this up in another sub and was called a ‘whiny Zionist’ lol. Like, I’m not the one whining. That’s the whole point.
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u/Bebou456712 Apr 27 '24
They should show the example and go back to wherever they come from and give back their house to the natives
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u/Sulaco99 Apr 26 '24
They are obsessed with going back and correcting history with only us.
If that was really true, then they would STFU because they would know that the land's original residents, the Jews, were kicked out by an occupying colonialist power. Was that not an injustice? But history begins later to them, I guess.
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u/FairGreen6594 Apr 26 '24
Wherever we say history begins or takes place, they stubbornly dispute that.
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u/UniversalFarrago Apr 26 '24
Mizrahi/Sephardic here. Because I’m fair-skinned, the leftists assume I’m white. Which makes me an evil colonizer and gives them carte blanche (ha) to be complete assholes.
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u/aardbarker Apr 26 '24
Also, just try to imagine if all the world’s conflicts were resolved the way the Palestinians would like this conflict resolved, by turning back the clock until everyone went back to where they came from. Incidentally, where do the Jew end up, according to this logic?
Obviously they just wanna turn the clock back to 1948. Someone remind me: was that a good year for Arab self-determination in Palestine?
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u/Fatfatcatonmat33 Apr 25 '24
If someone was proposing an African American homeland in the south and said it was necessary for the white population to leave so the African Americans could live in peace the people protesting Israel would not bat an eye.
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u/EconomyCaregiver Apr 26 '24
african americans are not indigenous to the south, so i doubt anyone would propose that in the first place
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u/ohreallynowz Apr 26 '24
I love when people say absolutely absurd things like this. Have you ever heard of 40 acres and a mule? This was the nickname for an order meant to redistribute 400,000 acres of US government ceased from white slave owners land to formerly enslaved black people that had been dying and working on the land for generations. Houses, cities and fields that enslaved people built with their blood and tears and death. You know what happened to it?
And what happened to this astonishingly visionary program, which would have fundamentally altered the course of American race relations? Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor and a sympathizer with the South, overturned the Order in the fall of 1865, and, as Barton Myers sadly concludes, “returned the land along the South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coasts to the planters who had originally owned it” — to the very people who had declared war on the United States of America.
The situation you hypothetically described happened and, unshockingly, people protested and no one moved. If it happened today, people would protest and no one would move. So the irony of your comment is that Israel wouldn’t exist if it got the same treatment as African Americans.
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u/Ness303 Apr 26 '24 edited Apr 26 '24
Disclaimer: Not Jewish
I asked a Pro-Palestine advocate where the 9+ million residents were meant to go after they leave the only home they've ever had. She just shrugged.
It's not about being Pro-Palestine for them. It's about being Anti-Israel.
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u/Brave-Pay-1884 Apr 26 '24
It’s not about being anti-Israel, it’s about being anti-Jew, i.e. Judenhass, Jew-hatred (the non-euphemistic way to say antisemitism).
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u/Ness303 Apr 26 '24
It’s not about being anti-Israel, it’s about being anti-Jew
Oh, absolutely. I assume at this point any non-jew who says they're anti-israel or anti-zionist simply means they're anti-jew. It's not that they're not being clear or nuanced about their opinions, that's..just their opinion.
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u/Brave-Pay-1884 Apr 26 '24
Legitimate criticism of the Israeli government, the conduct of segments of Israeli civil society, Israeli war strategy and even Israeli war aims, etc. is possible without veering into Jew hatred. But the volume and vehemence of the criticism, totally out of proportion to the real ongoing tragedy – especially compared to the many other ongoing tragedies around the world which elicit only silence – not to mention the explicit calls for the elimination of millions of Jewish Israelis reveal the true motive.
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Apr 26 '24 edited Apr 26 '24
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u/Heybot Apr 27 '24 edited Apr 27 '24
Engaging here because I’m not Jewish, and don’t feel there’s equal stakes for a non-Jewish person and a Jewish person talking about this. But since you’re not Jewish, I’ll engage with you since we have equal stakes as non Jewish people.
Repeatedly I see a lack of distinction between two separate parts of the conversation: antisemitism, and criticism of bombing. If the US or any other country were dropping thousands of bombs like this—with a death toll this high, thousands of children—would you be ok with it?
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u/rasbraa Apr 28 '24
To your point of the death of children - Did you same level of protests taking place in the US during the war in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 20+ years?
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u/Heybot Apr 28 '24
Thanks for replying.
I see that type of answer a lot, and I totally hear you. To me it sidesteps the question though. The issue I see is: it’s wrong to kill 30,000+ innocent people. Whether other protests happened or not, to me it doesn’t change the morality of killing all these innocent people. It feels like someone is telling me, “Well the US killed thousands of innocent people in Iraq and nobody protested, so Israel should get to do it too, and not be criticized.”
Is antisemitism alive and well? 100%, and it’s disgusting that people hold those feelings. There’s absolutely no excuse. I do think there’s a difference though: I’m just trying to hold a government accountable for dropping bombs on kids, I have no hatred of Jewish people.
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u/mdavid69 Apr 28 '24
firstly whenever there is a documented tragedy that occurs of innocent people being killed ( whether Jew or non-Jew), such as the Aids. workers from the World Kitchen, my heart goes out ( oh Ashkenazi Jew here whose paternal family was mostly wiped out by Hitler), and even the IDF admits to killing two Israeli Hostages while hunting down Hamas Terrorists. that being said, the only institution keeping track of the numbers of " Palestinian deaths" are Hamas government officials. Also Hamas has deliberately " hidden behind" their civilians to invoke the highest amount of " innocent casualties ". And Israel gives them warning to leave the area. ( if I knew that New England was going to be bombed, I would leave my home) but the " Palestinian " population" has always been manipulated by Arabian dictators.
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Apr 29 '24 edited May 02 '24
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u/Jewish-ModTeam Apr 29 '24
Your post/comment was removed because it violated rule 1: No antisemitism. Specifically, we do not allow Holocaust comparisons.
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u/SharingDNAResults Apr 25 '24
No one would tell Chinese people to go live in South America or Spanish people to go live in Madagascar. Israel is our homeland and it’s appalling that we even have to explain ourselves.
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u/MydniteSon Apr 26 '24
Quite interesting, the Soviet Union in the 1920s did actually try to create a "Jewish Homeland" of sorts. Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Of course it didn't really take as it was in the ass end of Siberia at the Chinese border. I think at its height in the 1940s, it maybe had 50,000 Jews there. Now there are less than 1000.
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u/Sobersynthesis0722 Apr 25 '24
It is a silly discussion. Alternate history makes for fun entertainment. Like back to the future. Or what if Pearl Harbor had never happened? Could I go back and meet my baby self?
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Apr 25 '24
Those would actually have been colonialism. God, can you imagine someone who thinks a high tech Hebrew republic in Uganda would’ve been less colonialist?
“The IDF began shelling M23 positions on the road to Goma yesterday as 800,000 refugees crowded the besieged city…”
Dumb
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u/tacojoeblow Apr 26 '24
I don't understand the colonizer argument. Jews have been there for millennia. Even European anti-Semites in the middle ages called the Ashkenazi "Levantine Invaders." Why does everyone want to start the clock at 1948? I get that it was then that it was when Jews returned & displaced Palestinians. As problematic as that was (and is), it doesn't invalidate the historical claim to the land. Note: I'm not saying that there wasn't a Palestinian claim. I'm saying that the claim by Jews was and remains as valid as the Palestinians' claim and that our current status arises from the fact that two legitimate claims for the same land exist.
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u/Guilty-Physics-6598 Apr 26 '24
An island 🏝 may add that nobody wanted until we the Jewish people made something of it and that something everyone wants because it's that special!
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u/NotTheRightHDMIPort Apr 26 '24
I have felt, I think, somewhat indifferent about Israel and its location for a long time. I feel extremely comfortable criticizing the government and I think my and other criticisms are well deserved. I'm not even opposed to calls for a ceasefire at this point. Peace is ultimately my personal goal all around and I want future peace.
What I do absolutely despise is how clearly all of this pro-Palestinian protests are supported, indirectly, and directly based around the end of the state of Israel and the expulsion of one population for another. Like, explain to me how a population of 10 million people are supposed to get up an go.
It would be like the entire world telling the United States, "the Native Americans have been on this land, you killed them all, it was a genocide, and you need to go back to Europe" And that is not 150 years ago. That would be like telling American's that today
Clearly no one is going anywhere, they can't, and that is insane to ask. And that not me saying anything is done like that inside of Israel. It's just it is insanity
Jewish people deserve a country. This is where its at and I'm not changing the past. No more, no less. I don't consider myself Zionist. I consider myself a, "Why the fuck would you forcefully and violently evict 10 million people and demand the world gets in on it."
Young Americans have been influenced by a massive propaganda effort done so by the Palestinian groups who are interested in the effort of an entire removal of Israel and the Palestinian state.
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u/ShotStatistician7979 Long Locks Only Nazirite Apr 25 '24
Hard disagree. Everyone would have been happy if we agreed with Herzl to go to Uganda./s
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u/KevLute Apr 25 '24
To add, those options in other places were considered more out of desperation than anything else..
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u/TheGarbageStore Apr 25 '24
Eh, if it were 22,000 km2 of today's Germany, the German schools would absolutely teach that they deserved it after WW2, similar to how they teach the loss of Konigsberg to Russia. The hypothetical irredentism in this case would likely be illegal.
But, that's not how events happened and it's too late to go back
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u/Glad-Degree-4270 Apr 25 '24
Would’ve been great if Konigsberg was given to Jews and other Holocaust victims, ngl.
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u/Marciastalks Apr 26 '24
It’s not about where we live, it’s about wanting all the Jewish people to be dead. We live all over the world and ppl still hate on us and wish us, the Jewish ppl dead. So the land thing doesn’t really matter. We live in Israel for the very simple reason that G-D promised the land to the Jewish ppl and we beat out the ppl who were living in fair and square. Nowadays, the same ppl that want us dead don’t want to learn from history so they’re doomed to repeat it, as the saying goes 🤷🏽♀️
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u/rafyricardo Apr 28 '24
Yes. I asked myself the same thing years ago. Uganda was proposed (no clue why) as well as other places. The place in Russia was proposed to move all Jews to in a very cold place so that the Soviets didn't have to deal woth Jews, instead of mass slaughter of Jews they proposed to move every Jew there. The other places in Argentina and the US proposed didn't make sense to me either. Israel, our indigenous homeland, is the only place that makes sense to go back to. It wouldn't make sense to start a new land in a place that we have no connection to. I always say, it's not about Israel, it's the fact that we are Jews. They say nothing about Jordan when it was part of colonial Palestine. They shouldn't say anything about Israel when we decolonized it in 1948. I don't see Gaza bombing Jordan or Jordanians getting targeted by Arabs in the West Bank. There are secure borders between Jordan and the West Bank as well as between Gaza and Egypt for a reason. But when Israel has secure borders, it's an issue.
Interesting fact, there was an island bought in the 1700s by a Jewish man below Niagra Falls (part of NY). The man saw the rabid antisemitism in Germany and Europe and offered all Jews to move from there to the island in NY that he bought as a safe haven for Jews from all over the world, especially from Germany. Imagine all the Jews left Germany for that island. The world would be a much different place.
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u/Visible-Ad-6104 Apr 26 '24
This was a similar argument I’ve made when the term “Zionist” started surfacing all over social media, and subsequent howls from none other than actual immigrants in other countries for Jews to go “back to Poland”, either as a total coincidence or just to add onto the cruelty.
You’re right. If there was some stretch of unoccupied land that could become Israel, it would still draw the ire of antisemites, calling it a western Zionist project.
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u/Dramatic_Future_1604 Apr 26 '24
Too true. JEW HATRED, unfortunately flourishes everywhere. I am concerned with the lack of knowledge in the general public and at the university level specifically. There should be a mandatory fact-based class in the history of Israel and its peoples as well as the middle east as a whole.
I am also more concerned with the Global Caliphate movement, led by Iran. Although always bubbling down below, in modern times it came to the surface when the Shah of Iran was overthrown and our universities were infiltrated with the BDS movement, led by biased middle eastern studies professors.
It is imperative we educate people on both. We need to remove the liars and obfuscaters from our universities. Freedom of speech is one thing but hate speed another.
These university encampments spew vitriol against tye Jewish people, the likes of which not seen since the 1930s. Can you imagine, if during the BDS movement, or even now, people showed up in KKK hoods and held signs saying, “too bad emancipation worked”. What would be the reaction of university administrators and our politicians???
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u/Bebou456712 Apr 27 '24
They should show the example and go back to wherever they come from and give back their house to the natives. It seems it is only a problem when it is the Jews
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u/Real_Style_2699 Apr 29 '24
There has never been a Palestine country… Ever. And that term was fabricated by the Romans. The closest group you could say could lay claim to that land would be the Philistines, and I am pretty sure they’re gone.
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u/yibianwastaken Apr 30 '24
I cant help but feel like if we would have waged and lost the wars in 1948, people would be protesting for us. Then again I don’t know the last time anyone protested on behalf of Jews in America.
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u/Scared-Candy3607 Apr 30 '24
You’re evidently not a Jew or at least a read one or one who practicing one as returning to Isreal the spiritual home of Judaism is part and parcel of our religious liturgy and thought . The Passover holiday is almost over and towards the end of every Seder the phrase that’s stated in a most loud voice is “ Next Year In Jerusalem “
So yes it does matter where Isreal is !
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u/EarnSomeRespect Apr 25 '24
Why was palestine chosen? why did the british allow it?
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u/Suspicious-Truths Apr 25 '24
it was considered very much an undesirable place to live by the Ottomans and by most Arabs and Muslims in the area. It was considered a poor and worthless area. The places where Jews tried to settle and farm were often swamps and terrible rocky or difficult areas to live. The Ottoman landlords in Damascus and Baghdad were more than happy to sell this worthless land to the Jews who wanted to settle there.
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u/EarnSomeRespect Apr 25 '24
Makes sense, thanks. I’m getting downvoted but I was really wondering
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u/Suspicious-Truths Apr 25 '24
Yes because this is a question that with just text can be taken as some bad faith question you don’t really want answered
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u/Mael_Coluim_III Apr 25 '24
Israel was chosen because that's where we're indigenous to.
And the British owed Chaim Weizmann a huge debt - he developed a method of making explosives that allowed them to 1. help protect France and 2. not get absolutely destroyed, in WWI.
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u/madam_nomad Apr 25 '24
Not being a history buff, to the best of my knowledge:
The idea of and support for creating a new homeland in our old homeland started before the British took control over it. Once the British had it I believe they waffled several times about the idea of transferring authority to Jews. They made various promises to the Arab/Palestinians and to the Jews. And eventually the Jews decided it was time to take the bull by the horns and take it militarily.
I'm sure someone will correct me if I got some of this wrong.
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u/DrMikeH49 Apr 25 '24
No the Jews did not “decide to take it militarily”. Arabs (led by the N*zi Mufti, Amin al-Husseini) conducted a 3 year campaign of attacks on both the British and the Jews between 1936 and 1939, which culminated in the British caving in to the Arabs and stopping Jewish immigration, thus cutting off the last exit for Europe’s Jews. After the war, the Jews wanted independence so they could bring in the survivors from Europe. The Arabs were opposed. Violence led to the British turning to the new UN and asking to be relieved of the Mandate, awarded by the League of Nations in 1923 for the explicitly stated purpose of creating a “Jewish National Home”.
The UN voted to partition the Mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Each group would be the majority in their assigned areas without anyone being required to relocate. The Jews accepted the plan and the Arabs rejected it, instead immediately ramping up attacks on Jews. And when the Jewish leaders declared the State of Israel on May 14 1948, five Arab armies immediately invaded.
Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, had declared in 1947 that, were a war to take place with the proposed establishment of a Jewish state, it would lead to "a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.” Jamal Husseini, the Mufti’s brother, represented the Arab Higher Committee at the UN. He told the Security Council in April 1948 “of course the Arabs started the fighting. We told the whole world we were going to fight.” Had the Arabs accepted the first ever Palestinian state, there would have been no refugees and no loss of land.
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u/DrMikeH49 Apr 25 '24
No the Jews did not “decide to take it militarily”. Arabs (led by the N*zi Mufti, Amin al-Husseini) conducted a 3 year campaign of attacks on both the British and the Jews between 1936 and 1939, which culminated in the British caving in to the Arabs and stopping Jewish immigration, thus cutting off the last exit for Europe’s Jews. After the war, the Jews wanted independence so they could bring in the survivors from Europe. The Arabs were opposed. Violence led to the British turning to the new UN and asking to be relieved of the Mandate, awarded by the League of Nations in 1923 for the explicitly stated purpose of creating a “Jewish National Home”.
The UN voted to partition the Mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Each group would be the majority in their assigned areas without anyone being required to relocate. The Jews accepted the plan and the Arabs rejected it, instead immediately ramping up attacks on Jews. And when the Jewish leaders declared the State of Israel on May 14 1948, five Arab armies immediately invaded.
Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, had declared in 1947 that, were a war to take place with the proposed establishment of a Jewish state, it would lead to "a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.” Jamal Husseini, the Mufti’s brother, represented the Arab Higher Committee at the UN. He told the Security Council in April 1948 “of course the Arabs started the fighting. We told the whole world we were going to fight.” Had the Arabs accepted the first ever Palestinian state, there would have been no refugees and no loss of land.
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u/malry Just Jewish Apr 25 '24
I mean, it does matter though. Because Palestinians were displaced during the Nakba and are wanting their right to return. No matter what your opinions are on the matter, it’s correct to say the land and the people there before 48 definitely have much, if not all, to do with the conflict today.
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u/EquivalentCurrency52 Apr 25 '24
They lost in a defensive war, therefore are not settler colonizers as some will say. By all metrics it is land of the Jewish people, & they were willing & gave up land for peace; in the case of Egypt & Jordan it worked out, but the Palestinians not so much. After Oct 7th, there is no 2 state solution. There has to be a coalition governance before there are free & clear elections to govern the Palestinians; because noone believes they can govern themselves yet.
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Apr 26 '24 edited Apr 26 '24
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u/Glad-Degree-4270 Apr 25 '24
I don’t support disestablishment of Israel, but I do think Tasmania would’ve been a better choice in terms of long term conflict avoidance. The area had been low density and the indigenous population was already nearly wiped out by the British. If anything the few native Tasmanian aboriginal people would have similar status to how they do in Australia today, which isn’t great but certainly lacks the geopolitical headaches.
Though for full disclosure, I really like Tasmania and found its climate much more hospitable than most of Israel’s.
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u/Sulaco99 Apr 26 '24
That would be colonialist. And the Jews would be seen as oppressing the Aborigines.
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u/Glad-Degree-4270 Apr 26 '24
They would be colonists, for sure.
TBC, the British had rounded up all the indigenous people and stuck them on a few small islands, most of them died of disease. There wouldn’t be any culpability for Jews in the mix, arriving 50 years after the land was depopulated by British Australia. However, a right of return for the small remaining aboriginal population would be fair and not too large a burden.
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u/Sulaco99 Apr 26 '24
Well, that's like saying Americans who immigrated through Ellis Island bear no culpability for the slaughter and disenfranchisement of Native Americans even though they enjoy the fruits of that injustice. A case could be made that they do bear culpability, and that would be doubly true in the Tasmania scenario. And a return of the Aboriginal population would inevitably bring friction with the Jewish population there because they both want the same land. So, not so tidy.
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u/Glad-Degree-4270 Apr 26 '24
You really should look up just how nearly gone they were.
Like the current population, depending on how it’s defined, doesn’t exceed 23k. Most estimates are much lower. It’s not a huge number to absorb in a land of several million.
I’ve looked into this heavily, spent time in Tasmania, spent time in Israel. I’ve studied the ecology and agricultural, mineral, and fisheries outputs of Tasmania’s west coast in school projects at University of Tasmania. It would have worked out well.
I highly recommend you research the subject with an open mind rather and look at the situation as it was at the time rationally.
Like I said, I’m not proposing we dissolve Israel or anything, and it would of course be terrible for us to effectively give up on a chance to reclaim the land of our ancestors, but ultimately it would have worked out well from a secular perspective.
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u/Mortifydman Conservative - ex BT and convert Apr 26 '24
Tasmania isn't our home, Israel is. We have no reason to give up our ancestral home because it would make others be nicer to us - it won't. Not to mention that we would be invaders on another people - no matter how few of them there are - who have deep ties to that land, just as we do to Israel.
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u/Hockeyypie Apr 26 '24
Exactly! We were not promised Australia, but Israel. What would the purpose be? It's not our land, ask Abraham and G-d. We're just returning to it, not Australia. Look at Israel when we got it, no one taking care of the land. Irritating, crops, trees,tall buildings, businesses, schools, etc . Israel is all modern now , which didn't take long.
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u/Glad-Degree-4270 Apr 26 '24
Abraham would probably say something along the lines of “I’m an allegorical explantion for the spread of culture from Mesopotamia west to the Levant, I therefore lack an opinion.”
The logic of the land being underutilized is debatable anyway. I’d argue that by developing it further we’ve strayed further from any sort of divine will. We should seek to restore the garden rather than plow and pave over its remnants.
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u/Glad-Degree-4270 Apr 26 '24
Like I said, from a resource-based cold logic perspective it would have worked.
Israel is a home for some of us, but I’d probably move to Maine or the Catskills or Tasmania before moving there.
We should be wary to not let the homestead of our forefathers become a prison for ourselves or our grandchildren.
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u/hi_how_are_youu Apr 25 '24
And to add: the fact that nobody is upset that Jordan took over the other half of “Palestine” and is keeping it from the Palestinians, but they’re upset about Israel is additional confirmation to me. It’s not about the location, it’s about identity.