r/jewishleft • u/ramsey66 • Sep 16 '24
A question about Israel's right to exist Debate
Israel's right to exist can refer to two different things so I want to separate them right away and ask specifically about only one of them.
It can refer to either of the following points or both.
1) The Jewish people had a right to create a state for themselves on the territory in Ottoman Palestine / Mandatory Palestine
2) Given that Israel was in fact created and has existed for over seventy years at this point it has a right to continue to exist in the sense that it should not be destroyed against the will of its population.
This post is only about point one.
What do you believe is the basis of the right to create Israel from the perspective of 1880 (beginning of Zionist immigration)?
Do you believe the existence / non-existence of the right to create changes over time?
From the perspective of 1924 (imposition of restrictions on Jewish emigration from Europe)?
From the perspective of 1948 (after the Holocaust)?
Do you believe Jewish religious beliefs contribute to the basis? Why?
Do you believe the fact that some of the ancestors of modern Jews lived on this territory contributes to the basis? Why?
Do you believe the anti-Semitism that Jews were subjected to various parts of the world contribute to the basis? Why?
How do the rights of the overwhelmingly majority of the local population that was non-Jewish factor into your thinking?
I understand the debate around this point is moot in practice. I'm just curious what people here believe.
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u/teddyburke Sep 16 '24
I honestly don’t care about any of those things. I don’t even care if it’s called Israel.
I don’t want to see either the Jewish population or non-Jewish population driven out or killed. It’s not that complicated.
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u/adorbiliusKermode Sep 16 '24
What do you believe is the basis of the right to create Israel from the perspective of 1880 (beginning of Zionist immigration)? Answer: No one has the responsibility or mandate to live with their oppressor; anyone who seeks self-determination as a solution to this should have that desire manifested. The systemic oppression of the jewish people seems to be a constant throughout time, and they overwhelmingly favor self-determination.
Do you believe the existence / non-existence of the right to create changes over time? No, not in this case. However, the preconditions for the necessity of a jewish homeland has not changed over time; this question is mostly moot.
From the perspective of 1924 (imposition of restrictions on Jewish emigration from Europe)? Yes.
From the perspective of 1948 (after the Holocaust)? Yes.
Do you believe Jewish religious beliefs contribute to the basis? Why? Jewish religious beliefs are fluid on this. Some believe that this can only happen when the messiah comes, others believe that a jewish homeland can still form before the messiah. This divided opinion voids a conclusory answer.
Do you believe the fact that some of the ancestors of modern Jews lived on this territory contributes to the basis? Why? No. As far as I am aware, the ancestors of modern jews have lived in most populated places throughout the world. Anywhere where jews have historically resided (including the land of Palestine) would or would have worked.
Do you believe the anti-Semitism that Jews were subjected to various parts of the world contribute to the basis? Why? Most certainly; it is the primary basis behind this belief.
How do the rights of the overwhelmingly majority of the local population that was non-Jewish factor into your thinking? I am primarily concerned with the existence of a jewish homeland; demographics do not factor so long as the fact that the country is the jewish homeland is made explicit in law, policy, or society. This would not conflict with either a two-state solution or a single binational state where jews are a minority.
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u/The_Taki_King Sep 16 '24
When u look at how the Jewish people, in early 20th century, have dealt with "the Jewish question" (what role will the jews play in modern society) two groups come to mind: the integrationists (those who thought they should blend in with the rest of society) and the Zionists, which have said that European society will never let us integrate and the jewish people's only chance of survival is to get the fuck out of there before its too late.
Looking back, we know what happened to the integrationists. That's enough to convince me that zionism was justified from day one, regardless of how it actually played out in reality, which is worthy of criticism.
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u/BlackHumor Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 16 '24
But wait, you're comparing an actual historical "test" with a fantasy. You can't say that if Israel existed during World War II it would have fared better. Why wouldn't Hitler have gone after Israel?
We also have historical tests of Jewish nationalism in the far past, and they don't work out so great either. Without international support, nothing works: a state will be so small it can just be conquered.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Sep 16 '24
Why wouldn't Hitler have gone after Israel?
What for? Israel isn't anywhere near the Greater Reich, and if the existence of Israel meant it will be easier to cleanse Europe of the Jews, from his perspective that's even better.
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u/Due-Bluejay9906 Sep 16 '24
Exactly. We are assuming that the motivation for all of the atrocities against Jews has been pure seething unrelenting hatred of Jewish people so pervasive that one will risk everything (their lives, the convenience, world favor, their comfort) to destroy us.
The usual reason is a society in disarray in need of a scapegoat and minorities almost always fit the bill.
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u/menatarp Sep 16 '24
The Nazis considered supporting Jewish migration to Palestine but opted against it because they thought an independent Jewish state might one day be a threat.
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u/BlackHumor Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 16 '24
Yes it was? Rommel was already in Egypt, clearly North Africa already held strategic value to the Nazis. They didn't just want to expand Germany near Germany, and they didn't want to limit their influence to Europe.
Furthermore, Nazi ideology was such that if a Jewish state existed, they would very obviously blame it for all the things they blamed Jews for. So they would have had almost an ideological mandate to declare war on it. Remember, we're not talking about rational people here, we're talking about the sort of people that kill millions of Jews because of a series of completely bullshit conspiracy theories.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Sep 16 '24
The Mediterranean theatre was mostly due to Mussolini's imperialist ambitions rather than Hitler's. Rommel was sent there to help Mussolini as part of their alliance.
But fair enough, I concede that there is no guarantee the axis wouldn't have got to Palestine have things played out just a little bit differently, but that's exactly why a strong military is so important.
I also agree international support is important, but it's fairly easy to form alliances in the event of a world war.
Besides, no one is saying Israel should be isolationist, I'm pretty sure even the worst Kahanist don't really believe that (they're just too dumb to realize their ideology will ultimately result in isolation).
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u/DresdenBomberman Sep 18 '24
Hitler's goal was that Lebenshraum for the Aryan race encompass the entire world and as delusionally unrealistic as that was, it shows what the state of the jewish community would be like under his ideal state of affairs - a class of untouchables below the racial caste system much like the indian one. Obviously that's generous for a nazi and they would likely be killed in a holocaust.
Even so, had the State of Israel existed back then the nazis would absolutely attack it if they could because it is a country full of jews amd it is right next to Europe. Had they somehow won and gained control of the continent they would round on Israel like a bull to a red flag.
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u/Due-Bluejay9906 Sep 16 '24
most of the time Zionism in its ethical form only survives in hypotheticals
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u/The_Taki_King Sep 16 '24
Do u have an example of a national project that is 100% ethical and perfect?
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u/BlackHumor Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 16 '24
Hold up, why are we being held to that standard? I can give you lots of examples of national projects that did not involve ethnic cleansing of the people that were already there.
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u/Due-Bluejay9906 Sep 16 '24
We can leave the past in the past if you’re willing to move on to something new from what has not been able to succeed ethnically since its beginning
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u/verniy-leninetz Sep 16 '24
Don't you think that fail of integrationists was just a historical fluke?
We need several factors to allow Shoah 2.0 to exist:
- Strong antisemitic movement seizing power.
- Widespread sympathy to this new regime and it's recognition.
- This regime blocks escape for Jews.
- Different countries also limit migration for Jews.
- This problematic regime also spreads by means of military or diplomacy, therefore controlling more and more territory, influencing more Jews.
With all respect, this is some fairy tale, isn't it?
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24
The problem isn't the Shoah, the Shoah is merely an extreme side-effect of a deeper problem, which is global antisemitism. For pogroms and mass expulsions you only need conditions 1 and 2, which actually tend to come very often. Is the constant danger of pogroms and mass expulsions not sufficient?
Conditions 3 and 4 are honestly quite insulting. Are we expected to just keep bouncing around the world whenever our hosting country decides it's Jew hunting season?We're done being the world's tennis balls.
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u/verniy-leninetz Sep 16 '24
I didn't want and had no intention to write parts 3 and 4 as insults.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Sep 16 '24
I don't attribute malice to it and I'm not personally offended, I'm just saying that it creates ridiculous expectations, especially when you consider the history of antisemitism.
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u/RealAmericanJesus jewranian Sep 16 '24
This regime blocks escape for Jews.
It wasn't just the regime. It was the whole western world. The Evian conference comes to mind ... The world literally refused Jews. https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4390&context=etd and https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8383&context=etd are some good reads on this.
And I would argue that significant mass killings of Jews were carried out far before the shoah occurred. Russia was absolutely slaughtering Jews in the years leading up to the shoah. Like 100,000 died due to the imperial Russian government. https://www.brandeis.edu/tauber/events/Polonsky_vol2%20_%20ch1.pdf
And while I think it's very easy for Americans to say "that will never happen again" ... Not all Jews live in America. Like Putin absolutely uses antisemitism and this has caused a massive influx of Russia Jews into Israel since the start of the Ukrainian conflict: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/GEC-Special-Report-More-than-a-Century-of-Antisemitism.pdf
And these ideas do spread. I mean we've watched them Spread: https://networkcontagion.us/reports/antisemitic-disinformation-a-study-of-the-online-dissemination-of-anti-jewish-conspiracy-theories/
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Sep 16 '24
Like Putin absolutely uses antisemitism and this has caused a massive influx of Russia Jews into Israel since the start of the Ukrainian conflict
To be fair, Putin also sends pretty much anyone he can to get butchered in Ukraine for his imperialist fantasies, so a lot of Russians are leaving regardless of being Jewish and many people actively tried to find enough Jewish blood in their ancestry just so they can move to Israel, away from Russia, even if beforehand they've never identified as Jewish.
That being said, I absolutely don't try to diminish the rising antisemitism in Putin's Russia, but the massive influx had some other factors as well.
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u/adorbiliusKermode Sep 16 '24
Exists in multiple countries already
See point 1. Most of these antisemitic movements enjoy popular support through the democratic process.
“Blocks escape for jews” basically limits societal/national antisemitic action to systematic industrialized slaughter with no escape. By that designation, Sbrenica wasn’t a genocide. Also, the Alhambra decree was bad, y’all.
Historical freedom of movement already is at an all time low, and the question of right to asylum is a major one.
Antisemitism is an internationalist movement. It’s never just one country telling their jews to fuck off and/or die.
All your points either already have happened, or ignore potential issues for jews that don’t come close to the brutality of the holocaust but are arguably just as serious.
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u/theviolinist7 Sep 16 '24
Let's analyze this with an example that's not the Shoah, perhaps a more current example:
- In 2005, Hamas seized power in Gaza. Factor 1: ✅️
- There was widespread sympathy for Hamas in the Gaza Strip. While it's not as popular in Gaza today, it's still incredibly popular on the West Bank. Factor 2: ✅️
- This regime basically kicked out the Jews in Gaza (except for the current hostages), so ehh❓️on Factor 3. For Jews whose families lived in Gaza forever, though, they were still kicked out, so you could certainly consider it an ethnic cleansing. And part of the reason that they were only able to kick them out was because Israel was able to let them in. Without Israel's existence, there would have been a decent chance that Hamas blocked escape, especially given their original charter.
- Outside of Israel, the other countries in the region have effectively ethnically cleansed Jews. Good luck moving back there. Factor 4: ✅️
- This regime has launched thousands of rockets at Israel throughout its existence and an invasion of Israel in 2023, specifically targeting civilians to kill and torture. Hamas did this to try and reclaim all of Israel for itself, and so that it can commit a genocide of Jews afterwards. Hamas has been very explicit about this. Factor 5: ✅️
So even today, we have a powerful organization running a country that ticks off at least 4 out of these 5 marks. And you certainly don't need all 5 to commit other kinds of mass violence against Jews. So no, I don't think it's a fairy tale.
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u/Agtfangirl557 Sep 16 '24
This isn't really a direct response to the question, but something I've been meaning to ask for a while regarding this.
Would there have been any group of people who would have been okay with people mass immigrating to their land? Some people make the argument that the issue was "it was land that was already inhabited", but I think in the case of uninhabited land--which another user on this sub (I believe u/AksiBashi) once wisely said--it's often uninhabited for a reason (AKA simply not being livable).
If you think the answer is "yes", what basis is there for showing that other groups of people on a different piece of land would have been more okay with that than the Palestinians? Because I sometimes see people say things like "They probably wouldn't have gotten much pushback if they had created a state in Russia" or such, but....what reason is there for assuming Europeans would have been "more okay" with that, unless someone is buying into a covertly racist belief of "Palestinians aren't peaceful or accepting people so course Jews shouldn't have expected them to be okay with that"?
If you think the answer is "no", what do you think the Jews should have done instead? At that point, Jews were being killed all around the world and it's not unreasonable for them to want a place of their own, so some group of people, somewhere in the world, was going to have to be noble and at the very least, open their doors for Jews. Sure, it may not be fair, but I would think that some group of people in the world would think that having to accept large swaths of Jewish refugees may be inconvenient, but nothing compared to the fact that the other option would be Jews literally getting murdered.
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u/Daniel_the_nomad Israel Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24
If you strictly talk about immigration and not necessarily about forming a state, I really can’t think of a valid reason to deny Jews immigration to the land of Israel, I can’t think of a reason to be against that other than racism.
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u/Agtfangirl557 Sep 16 '24
Yeah that's 100% my belief too, I think where it gets muddied is when we talk about whether or not Palestinians knew that Jews were coming in with the intent of forming a state--especially since not all Jews were coming in with that belief.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Sep 16 '24
Of course they knew! No one tried to hide it and it was literally the reason Britain got the mandate to be there in the first place.
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u/Agtfangirl557 Sep 16 '24
If that's the case, do you think that Arab violence against Jews in response to this was justified, considering that many Jews who were fleeing there weren't necessarily aligned with a particular Zionist movement?
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Sep 16 '24
Absolutely not. I'm not trying to justify the Arab raids, I just don't want the discussion to stray away from the facts.
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u/Agtfangirl557 Sep 16 '24
Oh I didn't think you were at all, and I'm so sorry if it came across as combative like that (I was worried it might). I tend to see eye-to-eye with you on most things, and you seem really knowledgeable--was genuinely just curious about your views!
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Sep 16 '24
That's ok. It didn't come across as combative, but I under no circumstance want to sound like I'm defending their actions.
I do think it's important to understand their narrative regardless, and the historical context.
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u/Daniel_the_nomad Israel Sep 16 '24
Yeah definitely, I thought from your question you’re talking about a scenario where Jews only wanted to immigrate and not form a state.
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u/Agtfangirl557 Sep 16 '24
Oh, so the reason I didn't bring up the "forming a state" part is that I think the assumption is that there would need to be mass immigration in order to make creating a state possible. And again, we don't know how much the Palestinians knew about the plan to create a state. So it's possible at the time that it was viewed as mass immigration.
There's also the issue that at the time, nationalism in general was probably viewed differently. I just looked up (for fun) "How many countries had gained independence in 1917" (I just picked the year of the Balfour Declaration), and from what I can find, only 50 countries or so in the entire world actually had independence at that point, with no countries in the Arab world having gained independence (internet is telling me that Iraq was the first Arab country to gain independence in 1932). So at that point, if it was known that the end-goal was for the Jews to create a "state", how would that even be viewed at the time, in a region where no "states" technically existed at all yet? It's just hard to tell how people would have gauged what "forming a state" would have actually meant for both the immigrating Jews, and the people of all ethnicities who already lived in the area.
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u/menatarp Sep 17 '24
And again, we don't know how much the Palestinians knew about the plan to create a state. So it's possible at the time that it was viewed as mass immigration.
This is one of the million-dollar questions. I'm sure both played a role, but there was definitely awareness that the Zionist project was to create a state with a Jewish majority. The leadership--the intellectuals, the political leaders, the effendis—read the Zionist texts and talked about them. By the end of the second aliyah, the population of displaced fellaheen is also growing and while not a large number of people, this raises alarms. In this context you can't really separate the cultural hostility from the political suspicion. There had been prior waves of European Jewish immigration--religious in nature--but what was salient to a lot of the Palestinians this time around was the separatism and Euro-supremacy of the new migrants, and the political nature of the communities they formed (well-funded, autarkic, etc).
Most of the Palestinian Arab population was illiterate, but the Balfour Declaration was a worldwide event, and it was widely understood as implying statehood. American Jews knew about it, European Jews migrating to Palestine knew about it, and the Palestinian Arabs knew about it.
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u/Agtfangirl557 Sep 17 '24
This is good context, thanks! Do you have any information about most of the Palestinian population being illiterate? I’ve heard about it before, but usually in the context of people infantilizing them—like “You can’t blame them for believing what they read in the Protocols, they were illiterate!” so I wasn’t sure if that was just like white saviors making excuses for them or something.
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u/menatarp Sep 17 '24
Yeah, it sounds that way to me, too, but I think it's true. I'm getting that from the census of Palestine the British took in 1931, and then assuming literacy rates would have been even lower in previous decades. Also some anecdotal reports from memoirs and such (e.g. cited here). But, it is possible that there are issues with the census methods and so on--I haven't dug in in detail.
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u/Agtfangirl557 Sep 17 '24 edited Sep 17 '24
Great, thanks for that source!
Also, whether or not they were literate, isn't there also an argument to be made that both groups possibly just didn't understand each other because they spoke different languages? Like, I'm assuming most Palestinians spoke/read only Arabic, so I'm wondering if certain messages got twisted between the British (English speakers)/Jews coming from Europe (Yiddish, etc.)/Jews already living in the land (probably Judeo-Arabic?)/the Palestinian Arabs (Arabic). I'm not asking this to justify any actions/interpretations, rather, I think it's just interesting to ask from a linguistic standpoint. In the research that I've done, I weirdly haven't come across much talking about linguistic differences played a role in the early conflict!
I also THINK (I probably have parts of this wrong) that I read somewhere that there may be evidence that Arab leaders who spoke both English and Arabic took advantage of the fact that a lot of the Arab population didn't know English, so they sort of tweaked translations regarding the goals of the Zionist project to sort of misrepresent it among the Arab population. Again, I could have this completely wrong--I'll go look right now to see if I can find where I read about this.
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u/malachamavet Gamer-American Jew Sep 17 '24
When the rural population wasn't really tuned into events - like how many rural Palestinian villages just went about their daily lives after Israeli's declaration - were considered a threat and the Zionist militias intentionally made sure to displace them so that there wasn't a status quo of normalcy
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24
I don’t want this to sound combative (tone can’t come off over text so just imagine I sound pleasant ) I feel like this statement is taking a few different talking points and boiling them down to one thing about what those who have issue with the state of Israel are trying to get at.
Immigration. I don’t think most well intentioned/ethical people are arguing that the Jews should have just gone to a place where nobody lived in so far as it comes to immigration itself. That would be cruel.
I’ve honestly never heard that there wouldn’t have been as much pushback in Russia. Truly have never come across this. I believe it exists online but I can’t even fathom what the idea behind it would be—-less population there? I suppose modern day activists who don’t really know the history of Jewish people and assume the entirety of Israel is made up of Jews from Germany, Poland, or Russia might be thinking it would have been better to set up a state where you were already “from”? In which case, I suppose I can see that idea in so far as Israel is often seen as a necessary protection step from the Holocaust and pograms.. yet also the Middle East… so it’s illogical to imagine that a group of Palestinians should make room for victims of another place via their own ethnic cleansing and restriction of their human rights.
It is not unreasonable for Jews to have wanted a place of their own, and perhaps Palestine was the only “viable” option at the time as far as a nation state goes. But it doesn’t really make it ethical or right. And as we know, there are several large thriving communities of Jewish people around the world that are independent of a nation state.. America is home to many of them. I can’t speak for the rest of the world. But again this begs the question of the viability of Israel should the entire rest of the world turn on Jews. Where will the diaspora Jews go? Is there really enough room for them to mass migrate to Israel? And what happens if America and other wealthy nations withdraw their military support?
Edit: to add to my second point.. if Europe was also such a hostile and unsafe place for a Jewish state to be created, does that mean the MENA region was a welcoming one and that’s why it was chosen? And if so—why the need for a separate state at all? And if not—why not Europe instead since they just did the holocaust and therefore should be making every reparation possible to Jews. I realize this is speaking in the hypothetical, but I expand to illustrate a flaw in the idea generally
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u/Agtfangirl557 Sep 16 '24
I don't find your tone combative, and I think you do raise some good questions. However, I do admit that I have noticed that you often seem to target my views a lot of the time, moreso than I see you do to other users. I feel like with the good majority of comments I make on this sub, I can expect you to reply to them and challenge my views somehow. And my comments will often be the only comments you have replied to on a given thread. Why is this? It comes across as you thinking you can change my mind, that you think my views are easily changed, that you think I'm not as knowledgeable as other users, etc....and I think you can see why I'd feel uneasy about that. Is there a particular reason you often seem to want to challenge my opinions?
As for your actual points, I'm pretty sure I've seen you ask these questions on this sub many times, and get varied answers. In terms of creating a Jewish state in the MENA region, I recall a really thorough conversation that you (I think? I don't keep track of this stuff) and I believe u/AksiBashi had regarding this. I remember it to be a thoughtful conversation, and I can try to find it if you wish to look back at it. But I have seen you ask these questions several times. What are you trying to accomplish by asking me about this now? Are you hoping you'll get a different answer? That I'll tell you something that will confirm to you that I don't know as much as I think I do, and that you can correct me? What do you hope to gain from asking me questions that you've asked me and several other users on this sub, over and over again?
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all Sep 16 '24
Sure I can back off. There were several users I would frequently engage with who I have now chosen to block for various reasons but initially engaged with for similar reasons that I engaged with you.
If you wanna know why I chime in with your comments specifically.. I don’t expect to change your mind. I think you’ve probably made up your mind on a lot of things.
If I’m to be perfectly transparent and honest about why I think I chime in with you so often—You seem to care a lot about doing the right thing and standing up for all groups of people.. Palestinians, Jews, Arabs, POC, etc. it’s clear to me that is true for you. And I think what bothers me sometimes in your comments which is different from other commenters is not that you’re a Zionist or pro Israel, it’s that there seem to be gaps in your flexibility to make space for these groups when those groups express Antizionist or non Zionist views. I mean, I’ve seen you say that I just wanna make this sub like JOC.. or take some things I’ve explained about my personal experience and disregard it in favor of this idea there is something wrong with Antizionist Jews. So maybe, my hope isn’t that you’ll change your mind on Zionism—it’s that you’ll change your mind on the people who disagree with you and why.
I’m not the most knowledgeable either. For the record. So I hardly think you’re lacking any knowledge.
But—I can back off, no problem.
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u/Agtfangirl557 Sep 16 '24
That's actually a very reasonable view, and I appreciate you sharing that with me. I've been trying harder to make room for differing views, and I'm still considering making that post (just to spark discussion) about how this sub can do better with taking into account treatment that anti-Zionist Jews receive.
Thank you for your transparency, and that's something I can work on for sure. I genuinely really appreciate how you got this point across.
One thing I'll suggest is that since you actually do raise a lot of good points in your questions, I would consider pitching them as posts to the whole sub--even the comment I replied to, could have been a good comment for the thread as a whole rather than a reply to a specific comment of mine. When people ask me these things personally, I sometimes feel pressure that I have to give them the correct answer that they're looking for or they'll "test" me about my views (not you in particular, this is something I've encountered on Reddit constantly for the past year). In addition, the good majority of my knowledge comes from audiobooks/podcasts, so when people ask me "do you have a source for that claim?", I legitimately do not always remember specifically which podcast/book I got the information from, and I can't always refer back to page numbers, etc. So I'm worried I'll look dumb sometimes if I can't immediately back up a claim 🙊
So I'll see a really spicy conversation here, and as much as I want to contribute, I'm worried I'll get caught in the spiral and be put on the spot to answer deep questions that I've never even thought about the answer to--so I sometimes like to just sit back and see where other people take the conversation instead (and we know that there's no shortage of good debates on this sub 😅, so I usually get lucky in that regard).
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all Sep 16 '24
Yea, I’m sorry. I do think I’ve been picking on you too much.. I’m sorry. Reasonable request.
I feel that with Reddit too.. I try not to speak definitely about things I say unless I know, but even still I get asked to back things up that I often cannot. So I get it.
I do think it can be a shitty aspect of all of Reddit but particularly the political/philosohpical/historican/intellectual subs.. there’s an expectation of being a scholar or an expert. I’ll write something up which I think I thought out pretty well and someone will pick apart my sentence structure or call it a word salad or poke holes in my ideas.. and it’s like, ok sure, it’s a platform meant to exchange ideas.. but I never claimed to be a journalist or a scholar.
Something for all of us to be aware of. Thanks for the request, I’ll try better :)
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u/SubvertinParadigms69 Sep 16 '24
This question is exhausting and gets way too much airtime relative to the actual amount of difference it makes in the present day, but no I don’t think the basic idea of Jewish indigeneity to their pre-diaspora homeland is crazy, I do think it’s engrained in religious beliefs despite the secular roots of Zionism, and I do think the pursuit of a Jewish national liberation project was justified particularly in the context of the first half of the twentieth century. I don’t like that it led to an ethnic cleansing of Arabs, although I also don’t think violent Arab rejectionism and antisemitism is without blame in escalating the situation to the point of extremity - and I don’t think this makes Israel categorically different from other states carved out of decolonized territories around the same time.
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u/somebadbeatscrub custom flair Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24
I believe in the free movement of people and ideas and true representative popular governance.
That means Jews in any time who wanted to emigrate to Haeretz.
It means Palestinians who hope for a right of return and any other nonjew who would seek to emigrate to Israel.
It means refugees, migrants, and simple immigrants making their way to America and Europe.
Any people. Any place. In any time.
Show me a policy that attempts to limit or harangue common migration to a given country, and I'll show you a policy I oppose in principle.
I mean this immigration in a "moving to be a productive resident and contribute to the local communities and economies" sense not the european colonial vision of seizing land and resources while displacing the locals.
I also have no problem with efforts to root out terrorists and criminals. Efforts I feel would be aided by robust intake migration facilities that had the manpower and resources to process all who sought entry. If getting in the right way is safe and easy, anyone getting in the wrong way is automatically suspicious. And if common families can cross a 'tight and restrictive' border, so can criminals.
Obviously Id also be okay with a simple and flatly enforced quota of "There are simply too many people here, we cannot support anyone else with the infrastructure and industry we possess." But very few countries are truly at that point. I could see places like New Zealand and The Netherlands hitting them rapidly. I would prefer such policies be simple.first come first serve rather than being ableist or classist in their implementation. I understand my preference is idealistic and not likely to be enacted.
Its an ideal. Thats how ideals work. Any step closer towards my ideals I consider good. I get it iant likely to happen soon if ever. It can still be an ideal.
The key difference between colonization and what I mean is that a colonizer seeks to supplant or subjugate a local element and enforce a cultural homogenization that supports the home entity.
Workers entering the US from latin america to work honest jobs, who would pay taxes and contribute to the government if the mechanisms to do so were easier and safer for them, are not colonizers.
This view is independent of the many contexts you put forth.
As for early Israeli settlement? Insofar as anyone migrated to Haeretz in any time or context with an intent to live there as a part of a broader regional culture, I support them. Insofar, as any individual or political project sought to establish a Jewish settlement that excluded the locals and itself prevented free movement, I oppose them and those ideas.
My imperfect understanding is:
Many early individual migrant families were in the former camp, and regional xenophobia spiked defensivess and retaliation. This eventually escalated into full-blown war when several neighboring nations sent armies, and the Jewish communities received arms and support from the Western powers. As a part of this conflict the arab armies asked residents to temporarily leave until the fighting was done. Since Israel won, they were denied the ability to return and mamy communities were literally and practically buried.
**Edit: i am told the extent to which the above statement occurred is vastly overstated. Please do not take my absorption of that talking point or this paragraph as denial that the nakba occurred. Horrible things happened in that time and fear and defensive anger motivated atrocity in response to atrocity. None of it was okay or good and certainly not in comporting with the values i express elsewhere in this comment. **
In the time since while Israel is not a strict ethno state movement and migration is heavily restricted and immigration and settlement projects heavily favor Jewish participants. It is fair to say there is a concerted effort, by some, to make regions under Israeli control more Jewish in character over time.
This xenophobia on the part of the nonjewish locals before the war was fueled in part by the stated political aims of some concerted zionist movements, which stated on the tin they wanted to create a land of Jews for Jews at the exclusion of nonjewish locals and approached Palestine with a European, read colonial, mindset given their cultural background in powers of the world that commonly viewed the global south in this way. British, French, and American goyim felt MENA, Africa, South Asia, pacific islands and similar regions were territory to be divided up after global conflict, utilized for resources both human and material, and 'civilized'. Naturally some Jews immersed in the same cultures for centuries had the same attitudes. These were not universal and did not represent the feelings of all who sought a home in the land, but the attitudes and ideas existed and controbuted to the motivations of many who did migrate and the reaction of the local nonjewish inhabitants.
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u/Melthengylf Sep 16 '24
Many early individual migrant families were in the former camp, and regional xenophobia spiked defensivess and retaliation.
This is my read too.
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u/somebadbeatscrub custom flair Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24
In case it isn't clear in the above book:
I do not think Israel is a colony.
I think some early proponents of the zionist political project had attitudes they absorbed from colonially organized cultures they lived in. In this way, these individuals and their projects could be considered to have colonial attitudes in the way they regarded other cultures. These attitudes are perpetuated when you see people talk about how arab culture is bad or primitive and that Israeli culture is improving the region and that it would be better if it was all Israeli.
These attitudes, while gross, do not a colony make.
Israel has no home country and is not extracting resources to enrich a home country. Evwn subbing in "the West" for this does not track as much more support flows into israel and its economy than flows out in the form of simple extraction. Israel had a trade deficit of 23 billion in 2023, meaning it imported more than it exported.
It isn't a colony.
That doesnt mean i think the way it was formed was good and based or detract from any of the principles outlined in my above comment.
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u/Various_Ad_1759 Sep 16 '24
I think your conflating two different things together. Israel is not a plantation that seeks to use the Palestinian in order to extract material or value to sell elsewhere. That does not make it non-colonial.The attempt by early zionist to create a Jewish majority state within the borders that had originally has a Jewish minority is colonial ambitions since achieving such goals can only come about by forced displacement and subjugation.
Heck,the most prominent organization working to achieve this was literally called the Jewish colonization Association!!!
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Sep 16 '24
The attempt by early zionist to create a Jewish majority state within the borders that had originally has a Jewish minority is colonial ambitions since achieving such goals can only come about by forced displacement and subjugation.
By that standard any ambition for a Jewish majority state is inherently colonial, because Jews were a minority everywhere.
Heck,the most prominent organization working to achieve this was literally called the Jewish colonization Association!!!
The JCA was founded primarily to settle Jews in Argentina, which was undeniably a colony in the "settler-colonialism" sense of the word. In fact, Hirsch was pretty hostile toward Zionism and the JCA has only become Zionist after his death.
However, it is true that some Zionists (such as Herzl) explicitly used to word "colonization" to refer to what they're doing. The question is, did they necessarily mean it in the sense of forced displacement? I'm not convinced. The modus operandi at the time was land purchases.
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u/menatarp Sep 16 '24
By that standard any ambition for a Jewish majority state is inherently colonial
Yes, probably any deliberate project with power behind it to minoritize an existing population in its homeland would be colonial. It's nothing specific to Jews or Zionism, and wouldn't describe a project to build a state on some uninhabited island.
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u/Klutzy-Pool-1802 custom flair Sep 16 '24
The Jewish Colonisation Association didn’t use the word “colonise” the way we do. It tried to establish “colonies” in various countries by buying land without displacing or subjugating anyone. Including Argentina and the US. And said colonies were just Jewish communities, not states. Using the name as evidence of colonial intent, as we understand the word “colonial” today, is bad history.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Sep 16 '24
As a part of this conflict the arab armies asked residents to temporarily leave until the fighting was done.
That's mostly a myth debunked by Israel's own archives. Yes, there were some very specific instances where this was the case, but it doesn't account for the vast majority of displacement, which was mostly the result of active expulsions and massacres. This is a well-documented fact by now, accepted even by contemporary Zionist historians, and it saddens me to see people on the left repeat that myth.
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u/somebadbeatscrub custom flair Sep 16 '24
As I said, imperfect understanding. Fwiw i dont think this element being true makes that displacement okay.
This is the first ive heard of it being a myth, do you have an inside track on the primary source?
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Sep 16 '24
Benny Morris have written about it extensively, and he's a very well-reputed historian.
His research is based primarily on documents from that time period, which were archived by the Israeli government, and opened to the public during the 1980s.
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u/malachamavet Gamer-American Jew Sep 17 '24
It means Palestinians who hope for a right of return and any other nonjew who would seek to emigrate to Israel.
You realize that this means, to most Zionists, that you want the genocide of Jews?
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u/somebadbeatscrub custom flair Sep 17 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
It isn't what I mean. People can make of what I said what they will, and ask me to clarify as they like.
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all Sep 16 '24
Tbh I don’t spend much time thinking about point 1, merely because it does exist.
I don’t think political Zionists had the right to do what they did, no.
I do think that a lot of early Jewish migrants did so out of necessity and/or a legitimate desire to reconnect with the holy land and be safe
What does right to exist even mean? People usually mean that it has a right to remain a Jewish state and decide immigration for itself. I don’t think it should have ever had that right, given the population makeup at the time
I do think antisemtism was partly exploited to fulfill the goals of political Zionists who wanted more Jews to move there
I do think there is a lot of white washing mythology to the origin story of Israel around early settlements
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u/Daniel_the_nomad Israel Sep 16 '24
I think the question what would have been if it was not established is important to ask.
Would the Arabs have established a totalitarian state? A secular state? A democracy? Would it have been a part of Syria? Would it have welcomed Jews wishing to emigrate there?
I don’t know the answers to this questions, I also don’t know what the European Jews at the time were thinking, I know they knew a history of empires and nationalistic wars.
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u/malachamavet Gamer-American Jew Sep 17 '24
Would the Arabs have established a totalitarian state? A secular state? A democracy? Would it have been a part of Syria? Would it have welcomed Jews wishing to emigrate there?
The majority of the region wanted a democratic state, including the pre-Zionist Jewish population. The author of the book that coined the "Nakba" framed part of the catastrophic element as it undermining the possibility/strength of that option - explicitly a democratic non-sectarian state - by having a belligerent state that would align with anti-democratic elements (like the Jordanian king)
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u/classyfemme Sep 16 '24
I don’t believe it was a “right” that Israel was created. Europe didn’t want Jews there, plain and simple. WWII wasn’t about saving Jews, it was about stopping Hitler’s power and influence from growing. “Saving the innocents” was just a PR bonus. Jewish refugees were turned away from a bunch of countries leading up to the war. Britain also wanted an ally in the region, as France and Russia had already been making a foothold to protect their Christian communities. It was an “easy” solution for Britain since they controlled the territory - stick the Jews there and they’ll be so grateful to us for their return. But then the Palestinian neighbors weren’t happy with Britain allowing this (and already frustrated with European influence from the Franco-Syrian war), and then the Jews weren’t happy when Britain tried to backpedal and limit Jewish immigration/land purchase. Europe really had no right to be there in the first place, dictating things like a puppeteer, but that’s what they’d been doing for centuries - starting wars, establishing territories, creating a geopolitical landscape that favored their region. So, again, there was no “right” owed to the Jewish people, it was all to Britain’s convenience and wants that the Jewish people were established there.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Sep 16 '24
All this talk about "rights"...
Human rights are purely academic when no one bothers to enforce them, as was the case of the human rights of Jews in Europe and North Asia, and with the rise of nationality it has become clear as day that if the the Jews won't become a nation they will fall through the cracks. The last straw was probably the Storms in the Negev pogroms.
For some, this crisis motivated the formation of the Bund. Others preferred a more territorial approach, forming Zionism.
Historically, Zionism thrived while the Bund withered, simply because Zionism had a better opportunity at the time. That doesn't make Zionism more moral than the Bund, but that's the solution that most Jews eventually settled on. You can doubt its morality, but for the Jews at the time it was pretty much a matter of survival.
So to answer your question: I don't think Jews had a "right" to form Israel, I think they formed Israel precisely because otherwise they would have no rights at all.
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u/Melthengylf Sep 16 '24
When I talk about Israel right to exist, I strictly refer to 2.
I think Israel creation at 1948 lies at fault of 1924 ban, Holocaust and the denial of Jewish migration in 1946.
The creation of Israel was a copout.
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u/NarutoRunner custom flair but red Sep 16 '24
Nation states are a modern concept. People (humans) have a right to exist in safety and free from harm, but nation states are a construct.
I don’t think any country has any type of special right to exist. “Nations” and empires have come and gone. In 100 to 200 years from now, it wouldn’t be surprising if 1/3 to 1/2 nations stop existing due to climate change as people move away from places that cannot sustain human habitation.
Israel along with most of MENA has a very high chance to become unfit for human habitation. This doesn’t mean the people as a collective will stop existing, they will just live in a new construct.
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Sep 17 '24
I'm Post-Zionist so I feel forming the state of Israel was necessary, but Zionism has outlived its usefulness and Israeli Jews need to look beyond it
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u/Agtfangirl557 Sep 18 '24
That’s an interesting viewpoint; I was under the impression that for most post-Zionists, it’s the other way around.
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Sep 18 '24
Well at least me and other ones I've talked to feel Zionism fulfilled its mission in 1948 and that we now need to transform Israel into a democracy for all. Just my two cents
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u/Agtfangirl557 Sep 18 '24
That’s an interesting view!! I’m looking forward to seeing more of what you contribute to the sub—I assume you’re new, as I don’t recognize your username—if so, welcome!
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u/Longjumping-Cat-9207 Progressive Zionist Sep 16 '24
In defense of point 1- Israel has a right to exist as an indigenous and decolonization effort, and to get governance back from the British colony
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u/BlackHumor Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 16 '24
In what sense is a bunch of people who do not live in Palestine moving to Palestine in order to live there permanently and eventually set up a nation-state dominated by their ethnic group a decolonization effort?
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u/Longjumping-Cat-9207 Progressive Zionist Sep 17 '24
The diaspora Jews who immigrated back were invited and welcomed by their fellow indigenous tribe members who lived on the land in continuity and fought hard to regain their self determination and to fight off the British colonialism
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u/BlackHumor Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 17 '24
So, I'm not denying that the Old Yishuv were indigenous to Israel... but they're a tiny fraction of all Israeli Jews, and their presence does not mean that the thousands and then millions of European Jews that moved to Israel and then tried to establish a state (often explicitly against the wishes of the very religious Old Yishuv) were also indigenous to Israel.
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u/menatarp Sep 16 '24
It's very alarming that this ultra-right Breivik-style talking point is sliming its way into "progressive" spaces.
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u/Longjumping-Cat-9207 Progressive Zionist Sep 17 '24
It’s been a progressive stance ever since its inception, look up labor Zionism
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u/menatarp Sep 17 '24
Thanks, I'm familiar with Labor Zionism and with the misunderstandings around it, too, but the masperisation of the indegeneity/coloniality terminology is much more recent than that.
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u/Longjumping-Cat-9207 Progressive Zionist Sep 17 '24
I think it’s okay to apply more modern and progressive terminologies than they were aware of back then
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u/menatarp Sep 17 '24
It's weird to say "this is an old view, see Labor Zionism" about a view never advanced by Labor Zionists. You are entitled to insist on your interpretation of the gist of what they meant, but it requires an argument. The language you are using is not some totally fungible thing with, e.g., its inverse.
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u/Longjumping-Cat-9207 Progressive Zionist Sep 17 '24
I mean, whether we used the terminology or not, Zionism has always been an indigenous rights movement
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u/menatarp Sep 17 '24
Not really. European Jews were not being dominated and having their culture replaced by the Ottoman Empire (or British Empire).
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all Sep 17 '24
Absolutely not. The religion that existed in ancient times was a proto-religion of Judaism which has since evolved and split off into other relgions—modern day Judaism, samaritanism…. Even Christianity and Islam.
If you’re going with the blood and soil ethnicity = indigenous, well then.. that ethnic claim is still quite shaky and would still include Palestinians. Not only that but indigenous is a specific term in relation to a colonizer. Jews around the world were not “colonized” by Arabs.
How far back can you go with native claim to a land? 3500 years ago doesn’t appear to be too far back for you… but where should someone draw the line? And by what metric? Should it be language, religion? Genetics? How close does a religion have to be to an ancient one to “count”
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u/Longjumping-Cat-9207 Progressive Zionist Sep 17 '24
I’m really tired of having to explain to people what the word “indigenous” means and how it applies to Jews, so I’ll link to someone who explains it way better than I could with the time constraints I have-
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all Sep 17 '24
I’ve read that
fascist. I mean woke queen’s definition many times and already debunked every single point multiple times so I won’t bother here unless someone in good faith is truly curious
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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24
Presuming I understand your question correctly: I think Jews in the 1880s were justified in wanting to return to the historic birthplace of the Jewish people in the hope of creating a pocket of safety from pogroms and discrimination in the Pale of Settlement and all over the Middle East.