Thanks for adding this history. I wonder what percentage of the angry ones are interested. I certainly am.
I have often wondered what would have happened if "Israel" had been created as a nonsectarian, not religious based sanctuary for all who desired to live there. A place where democracy and tolerance could thrive.
Thanks for adding this history. I wonder what percentage of the angry ones are interested. I certainly am.
I have often wondered what would have happened if "Israel" had been created as a nonsectarian, not religious based sanctuary for all who desired to live there. A place where democracy and tolerance could thrive.
My wife has family in Israel. Her cousin has made a career of finding common ground for Jewish and Arab kids. Teaching about each others cultures.
Israel is a place of religious tolerance. It is a Jewish state (the UK, France and Italy, among others, are explicitly Christian states), because Jews never found a place where they were truly at home. I used to say that the United States is a homeland for Jews, but in the past few months I have been a lot less sure of that. In any event, as you probably know, 20 percent of Israel's population is Arab (Muslim or Christian, also Druse) and they serve in Parliament and, in some instances, in the IDF. Ironically, given that we lawyers are said to be Jews who can't stand the sight of blood, a very large proportion of the doctors in Israeli hospitals are Arabs.
I was speaking broadly. But note that there are more Muslim citizens of Israel than there are Jews in all of the Arab nations around her. Before 1947 there were close to a million Jews in those nations--they were expelled or induced to leave after Israel's independence. Many of them went to Israel, where they are part of the problem. While Israel was founded by Jews who were of European origin, with ideas like social democracy in their blood, the Mizrahi from the Middle East had much the same intolerance and lack of interest in democracy that their former neighbors have exhibited (I am speaking VERY broadly here). Russian Jews who came to Israel in the 1980s and '90s exhibited many of the same regrettable tendencies. And it is true that many awful things have been done and are being done to Palestinians on the West Bank, and that they are largely shielded from view by what is happening in Gaza. Another reason why Israel must change course, radically. But it is true that Israel is a democracy, which none of the Arab states are, and that change is much more likely there than in their neighbors--that's one reason Israel is held to a higher standard.
Your long main comment is wonderful, Bill. And Jon Margolis is spot on. Please remember that Israel is a secular democracy. Its enemies are theocratic religious extremists. The fact that Israel is a "Jewish state" is not simply a function of religion; many many Jews past and present are atheists or non-believers whose highest values include tolerance, peaceful co-existence, and democracy (although tolerance cannot be open-ended; tolerance of religious extremism is self-defeating). The "Jewish state" is a result of centuries of murderous scapegoating of Jews the world over, most famously from Spain to Russia. We must not lose sight of the fact that Israel stands almost alone surrounded by mortal enemies. In the 'big picture' that is the problem that is being ignored by ignorant leftist extremists who bow to Chomskian false equivalences.
You might call it that. Not unlike our White Christian Nationalists. Hopefully, both Netanyahu and the Republican Party will soon be roundly defeated. But don't lose sight of the fact that our White Christian Nationalists are part of a vast fascist conspiracy affecting the entire planet, not just one small struggling democracy in the eastern Mediterranean which will quickly fall when the big democracies fall.
Bill & Jon, are you able to address women's rights in Palestine? I ask because to me it is something that perhaps many female students protesting in the streets are unaware of. My understanding is women do not have many rights like they do in the U.S. - rights at least granted by our various laws.
Had Israel been created in 1947 as you suggest--a "nonsectarian, not religious based sanctuary for all who desired to live there" --it would have been unique in that area of the world, as most Arab nations had been discriminating against Jewish residents for decades, in some cases violently and reminiscent of the pogroms of Europe, and forcing them out. Unfortunately, Netanyahu in his effort to make Gaza Hamas-free has imitated his enemies by slaughtering innocent non-Hamas residents of Gaza.
Thanks for adding this history. I wonder what percentage of the angry ones are interested. I certainly am.
I have often wondered what would have happened if "Israel" had been created as a nonsectarian, not religious based sanctuary for all who desired to live there. A place where democracy and tolerance could thrive.
My wife has family in Israel. Her cousin has made a career of finding common ground for Jewish and Arab kids. Teaching about each others cultures.
Israel is a place of religious tolerance. It is a Jewish state (the UK, France and Italy, among others, are explicitly Christian states), because Jews never found a place where they were truly at home. I used to say that the United States is a homeland for Jews, but in the past few months I have been a lot less sure of that. In any event, as you probably know, 20 percent of Israel's population is Arab (Muslim or Christian, also Druse) and they serve in Parliament and, in some instances, in the IDF. Ironically, given that we lawyers are said to be Jews who can't stand the sight of blood, a very large proportion of the doctors in Israeli hospitals are Arabs.
Tolerance? Like the settlers in the West Bank?
I was speaking broadly. But note that there are more Muslim citizens of Israel than there are Jews in all of the Arab nations around her. Before 1947 there were close to a million Jews in those nations--they were expelled or induced to leave after Israel's independence. Many of them went to Israel, where they are part of the problem. While Israel was founded by Jews who were of European origin, with ideas like social democracy in their blood, the Mizrahi from the Middle East had much the same intolerance and lack of interest in democracy that their former neighbors have exhibited (I am speaking VERY broadly here). Russian Jews who came to Israel in the 1980s and '90s exhibited many of the same regrettable tendencies. And it is true that many awful things have been done and are being done to Palestinians on the West Bank, and that they are largely shielded from view by what is happening in Gaza. Another reason why Israel must change course, radically. But it is true that Israel is a democracy, which none of the Arab states are, and that change is much more likely there than in their neighbors--that's one reason Israel is held to a higher standard.
Your long main comment is wonderful, Bill. And Jon Margolis is spot on. Please remember that Israel is a secular democracy. Its enemies are theocratic religious extremists. The fact that Israel is a "Jewish state" is not simply a function of religion; many many Jews past and present are atheists or non-believers whose highest values include tolerance, peaceful co-existence, and democracy (although tolerance cannot be open-ended; tolerance of religious extremism is self-defeating). The "Jewish state" is a result of centuries of murderous scapegoating of Jews the world over, most famously from Spain to Russia. We must not lose sight of the fact that Israel stands almost alone surrounded by mortal enemies. In the 'big picture' that is the problem that is being ignored by ignorant leftist extremists who bow to Chomskian false equivalences.
Doesn't Israel have its own brand of "religious extremists," too? A significant part of the coalition that supports Netanyahu in office.
You might call it that. Not unlike our White Christian Nationalists. Hopefully, both Netanyahu and the Republican Party will soon be roundly defeated. But don't lose sight of the fact that our White Christian Nationalists are part of a vast fascist conspiracy affecting the entire planet, not just one small struggling democracy in the eastern Mediterranean which will quickly fall when the big democracies fall.
Very well said! 16 replies tells you all you need to know about the one sided propaganda against Israel.
Bill & Jon, are you able to address women's rights in Palestine? I ask because to me it is something that perhaps many female students protesting in the streets are unaware of. My understanding is women do not have many rights like they do in the U.S. - rights at least granted by our various laws.
Had Israel been created in 1947 as you suggest--a "nonsectarian, not religious based sanctuary for all who desired to live there" --it would have been unique in that area of the world, as most Arab nations had been discriminating against Jewish residents for decades, in some cases violently and reminiscent of the pogroms of Europe, and forcing them out. Unfortunately, Netanyahu in his effort to make Gaza Hamas-free has imitated his enemies by slaughtering innocent non-Hamas residents of Gaza.