"The idea of it being Jewish ran smack up against it being Democratic..." "... those things collide".
Yes! Thank you! I've been saying that for a long time! The willingness of people to accept ethnonationalism when it is Jewish ethnonationalism is deeply distrubing, and undermines attempts to defeat white ethnonationalism and christian nationalism at home.
"The idea of it being Jewish ran smack up against it being Democratic..." "... those things collide".
Yes! Thank you! I've been saying that for a long time! The willingness of people to accept ethnonationalism when it is Jewish ethnonationalism is deeply distrubing, and undermines attempts to defeat white ethnonationalism and christian nationalism at home.
Christians in England can get married by a non-Jewish judge if they wish, unlike in Israel, where they can only be married in a religious ceremony, by an Orthodox rabbi under the authority of the Chief Rabbinate and so on for Muslims, etc.
You just make this stuff up. Orthodox Jews get married under the rabbinate. Everybody else gets married by their own religious leaders, including Muslims. All marriages performed outside of Israel are recognized and registered, including interfaith marriages.
News flash: American Orthodox jump through an equal number of hoops to get married. Chasids make the Modern Orthodox look like Catholics.
Does England use the Bible to decide what laws to make? Their prime minister is Hindu. They are by most standards a secular liberal democracy. How are they currently a Christian nation in any meaningful way? The Church of England is an atavistic leftover from a heinous past full of atrocities, much like the monarchy and the house of lords, it should no longer have a place in governance.
I'll give you that they were once a Christian nation. During that period they persecuted a lot of religious minorities, including Jews and other Christians. Not really a great example for a modern state to emulate.
The head of state is also the head of the national church in England but I agree with you that England is more tied up trying to define who is English right now than whether theyтАЩre all Christians.
Sunak is on his way out, though. Who knows what happens when heтАЩs gone. It could be the Crusades.
The King opens Parliament and is visited weekly by the PM, who delivers a status report. England has an unwritten constitution so both of those things are holdovers, but youтАЩre right, royalty doesnтАЩt actually legislate.
The Head of State in GB and the Commonwealth is the monarch, though.
Come on Kim. This is just being argumentative. The king has no role in government. None. In fact he is not allowed to really comment on anything to do with governing
The comparison was England to Israel. There is nothing remotely similar between the two countries now. There is no country like Israel. ItтАЩs unique because it is (1) a ethnostate and (2) is a democracy. To some extent EVERY country has been thinning you look historically. It is closer to South Africa in 80s and the US before the civil war. ThatтАЩs why it breaks everyoneтАЩs brains.
Most countries in Europe were exactly this as well in the 1600s - 1800s. They solved it the same way we did. Wars and ethnic cleansing.
Not at all. IтАЩm an atheist. I accept that there are many religions in the world and it is important to them. There are many Christian nations, Muslim nations, etc. I have no problem with Jewish people having a Jewish nation. I have lived in other countries and enjoyed it but I prefer it here in the states where I do not have to pay a тАЬchurchтАЭ tax.
But that's my point. Why should a certain religion get more control over the people than the people themselves?
(let's set aside for now the fact that in the case of Israel it's not just religious but ethnic as well, which means certain types of Jews aren't included)
These religious states are leftovers from an older, objectively worse world. We shouldn't want them to be our future. The people of Israel deserve freedom and equality, regardless of their religion or ethnicity.
Israel is unique in that it is majority Jewish and people of other religions want to kill them. This is why there are only about 15 million Jewish people on the planet. There are more Muslims in Russia than there are Jews in Israel. I think progressives are being a little too idealistic in thinking they can create a Democratic Palestine and everyone (Christian, Muslims and Jews) will be one free big happy family. In reality, we would just watch another Jewish Holocaust for this century.
Israeli citizenship is automatic to Jews. It is a homeland for us.
Jewish academic, literary, scientific and artistic accomplishment means that left alone Israel will always be governed by Jews. Everybody is sick to death of Bibi. HeтАЩs on his way out. He never gets a majority. Because Israel is a democracy, the voters will get him out. He tried to rig the system through the courts and the population stopped him. His downfall is in abeyance because of the war but itтАЩs not eternally vacated.
Contrary to GlaudeтАЩs throwaway statement, the Likud doesnтАЩt represent Israel any more than MAGA represents the US. ItтАЩs just a significant and dangerous minority.
The real threats to Israel, unlike here, are from the outside. Israel is surrounded by enemies on every side. But, even some of those enemies want to do business with Israel. Many of them would be fine with Israeli Jews being dead, but since theyтАЩre not dead, theyтАЩll work with them. They also share the hatred of Iran.
All of that being true means that the Jews will run their homeland for a long, long time. We were ethnically cleansed; the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis means that there are fewer Jews now than there were in 1940. ThatтАЩs what those words mean.
Israel is a vital US ally. ItтАЩs the single source of valuable intel from the Mideast. Absent mass murder itтАЩs not going anywhere.
There are Israeli Arabs. They have a political party and the right to ask for citizenship. They arenтАЩt conscripted, however, although they may volunteer. The Bedouins always volunteer. In my opinion that means the Bedouins should be able to walk into citizenship and assimilate completely if they like, or not.
Can you not understand why Jews donтАЩt want someone else to run their country? No one is forced to live in Israel. The Arabs who live there chose to live there from the mandate forward.
The US is an enormous, rapidly evolving population with hundreds of religions, cultures, and races. Israel is a tiny community with a total of about five religions and exists as a haven for people nobody else wanted. The idea of someone else running it is anathema. Nobody wanted the place. It was a waterless wasteland. When the Jews came home they turned it into a verdant, productive country.
Bibi has been in power for how long? The Israeli public is responsible for electing a corrupt and incompetent leader who discriminates against Palestinians in the occupied territories. The result is a loss of support for Israel by a large portion of the American public.
BidenтАЩs support for Israel may contribute to the American public electing a corrupt and incompetent authoritarian leader like Bibi. The whole situation is so sad.
Was the American public responsible for electing Trump? Bibi doesnтАЩt win majorities either.
IтАЩm reasonably confident that a nation like Israel isnтАЩt worried about winning a popularity contest. ItтАЩs worried about whether it continues to exist.
Most of America doesnтАЩt oppose the war and only for a tiny minority will it affect their vote. In Della VolpeтАЩs Harvard Youth Poll (a gold standard) voters 18-29 identified it as 13th in importance to their vote. Thirteenth.
Israel has a repulsive right wing, steeped in religious nonsense. Sound familiar? Either it saves itself or it doesnтАЩt, but your suggestion that it stop defending its right to exist because it elected someone who is scrambling to stay out of prison is a tiny bit antisemitic. And since it is the only democracy and the only source of Mideast intel in allyship with the US, we have a vital role in helping it survive.
It feels a bit rich to me that whether Israel doesnтАЩt trust Palestinians is more bewildering or surprising than why a single Arab nation wonтАЩt take them in. Why do you suppose Egypt built a wall to keep them out? Or Jordan? Food for thought.
When you suggested Israel should be more concerned about the Palestinians than the PalestiniansтАЩ own (elected) government is.
You donтАЩt see Arab nations lining up to protest on behalf of the Palestinians. DonтАЩt you wonder why that is? Nations like Jordan flew defense for Israel when Iran attacked.
Support for Hamas was 40-50% amongst the Palestinian people before the war. The Arab nations (except Iran, which isnтАЩt Arab but gets lumped in all of the time) are going to scapegoat Gaza for this.
IsraelтАЩs duty is to defend Israel and that means neutralizing Hamas. The UN has now determined that Hamas vastly overinflated the number of dead, and that 14K of the actual dead were Hamas fighters.
Hamas is a terrorist organization that does not care at all about their citizens. I expect everybody to care more about the Palestinians than Hamas does. Half the Palestinian population is under 18, those under 30 were under 12 when Hamas was elected. The majority of the current population did not elect Hamas.
Israel absolutely has a right to defend its right to exist. But if the Israeli government is going to prop up Hamas at the expense of the PA then it has responsibility not to kill so many children, starve the population and withhold medicine and thereby cause so much suffering. Netanyahu arranged for Qatar to fund Hamas with the permission of the Trump administration. The Israeli government ignored intelligence about the terrorist attack on its own citizens while its military protected settlers terrorizing Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel does not have a long term plan for Gaza that promotes peace in the region. Maybe you are right and it will turn out to be surgical when all the evidence is in but it does not look that way so far.
You seem to suggest that all Palestinians are evil so no Arab nations want to take them in. I think that Palestinians are just like Americans and Israelis, mostly good, although Palestinians have harder lives.
Not think about it, seriously? It would be great if either Egypt or Jordan would take a more active role in facilitating aid to Gaza but why should they take in refugees w/o any agreement with a reliable Israeli government about rights to return to that limited space? In light of events of past 10-15 years in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that have left non-Israeli citizens essentially stateless, how are we as Americans supposed to be expected to trust the Israeli populace?
You missed my sarcasm. No Arab nation will assist them or have them. And there are excellent reasons for that which are unrelated to a тАЬright of return.тАЭ
How did you move so easily from the Israeli government to the Israeli тАЬpopulace?тАЭ If thatтАЩs the rule, I suppose itтАЩs fair to equate the Palestinian populace with its government.
This is a war for the existence of a nation which is home to people determined to make sure the existence continues. Hamas shouldnтАЩt have attacked it, a fact which is sadly unimportant to too many people.
So, the killing of 1,000 Israeli's is a horrible crime (which is true) that proves protestors are all evil anti-Zionists but the killing of thousands of civilians in Gaza is a shrug.
I'm not surprised you think the Gazans should just leave and let West Bank become part of Greater Israel. Which is y'know, the reasons Gazans don't leave - because they know that's what Israeli's want. An excuse not to let them back to the West Bank.
"The idea of it being Jewish ran smack up against it being Democratic..." "... those things collide".
Yes! Thank you! I've been saying that for a long time! The willingness of people to accept ethnonationalism when it is Jewish ethnonationalism is deeply distrubing, and undermines attempts to defeat white ethnonationalism and christian nationalism at home.
England is a Christian State. Does that mean they are not a Democracy? What about Germany? Are all Christian countries not Democracies?
Christians in England can get married by a non-Jewish judge if they wish, unlike in Israel, where they can only be married in a religious ceremony, by an Orthodox rabbi under the authority of the Chief Rabbinate and so on for Muslims, etc.
You just make this stuff up. Orthodox Jews get married under the rabbinate. Everybody else gets married by their own religious leaders, including Muslims. All marriages performed outside of Israel are recognized and registered, including interfaith marriages.
News flash: American Orthodox jump through an equal number of hoops to get married. Chasids make the Modern Orthodox look like Catholics.
ItтАЩs also a monarchyтАжand also a democracy. This is a meaningless statement.
Does England use the Bible to decide what laws to make? Their prime minister is Hindu. They are by most standards a secular liberal democracy. How are they currently a Christian nation in any meaningful way? The Church of England is an atavistic leftover from a heinous past full of atrocities, much like the monarchy and the house of lords, it should no longer have a place in governance.
I'll give you that they were once a Christian nation. During that period they persecuted a lot of religious minorities, including Jews and other Christians. Not really a great example for a modern state to emulate.
The head of state is also the head of the national church in England but I agree with you that England is more tied up trying to define who is English right now than whether theyтАЩre all Christians.
Sunak is on his way out, though. Who knows what happens when heтАЩs gone. It could be the Crusades.
Kim this isnтАЩt true. The king, who has nothing to do with t)3 government, is the head of the church
The King opens Parliament and is visited weekly by the PM, who delivers a status report. England has an unwritten constitution so both of those things are holdovers, but youтАЩre right, royalty doesnтАЩt actually legislate.
The Head of State in GB and the Commonwealth is the monarch, though.
Come on Kim. This is just being argumentative. The king has no role in government. None. In fact he is not allowed to really comment on anything to do with governing
Ok. I donтАЩt know what the argument is. I said England wasnтАЩt a Christian country. Go far enough back and it didnтАЩt start out one, either.
The comparison was England to Israel. There is nothing remotely similar between the two countries now. There is no country like Israel. ItтАЩs unique because it is (1) a ethnostate and (2) is a democracy. To some extent EVERY country has been thinning you look historically. It is closer to South Africa in 80s and the US before the civil war. ThatтАЩs why it breaks everyoneтАЩs brains.
Most countries in Europe were exactly this as well in the 1600s - 1800s. They solved it the same way we did. Wars and ethnic cleansing.
Oh, sorry. I was just responding to the discussion of whether England was a Christian state. My responses on Israel are higher up in another thread.
Yes. The Church of England is integrated into their parliament.
The Church of England is headed by the KING. he has nothing to do with governing. This is factually incorrect
So I take it from your position that you would be totally fine with the US becoming an officially "Christian nation"? With all that entails.
Not at all. IтАЩm an atheist. I accept that there are many religions in the world and it is important to them. There are many Christian nations, Muslim nations, etc. I have no problem with Jewish people having a Jewish nation. I have lived in other countries and enjoyed it but I prefer it here in the states where I do not have to pay a тАЬchurchтАЭ tax.
But that's my point. Why should a certain religion get more control over the people than the people themselves?
(let's set aside for now the fact that in the case of Israel it's not just religious but ethnic as well, which means certain types of Jews aren't included)
These religious states are leftovers from an older, objectively worse world. We shouldn't want them to be our future. The people of Israel deserve freedom and equality, regardless of their religion or ethnicity.
Israel is unique in that it is majority Jewish and people of other religions want to kill them. This is why there are only about 15 million Jewish people on the planet. There are more Muslims in Russia than there are Jews in Israel. I think progressives are being a little too idealistic in thinking they can create a Democratic Palestine and everyone (Christian, Muslims and Jews) will be one free big happy family. In reality, we would just watch another Jewish Holocaust for this century.
Yep. IтАЩm not sure that would trouble as many folks as we think.
Israel is a Jewish democracy. Judaism is embedded in democracy because it is ethical monotheism and our rabbis are not only teachers but lawyers.
And Judaism is far more than a religion.
I know. I never said it was anything otherwise. That's why I compared it to white nationalism.
You cannot maintain ethno-centric control and democracy long term without creating second class citizens and oppressing minority groups.
You clearly believe otherwise, so what's your proposal to make sure Israel is always governed by a Jewish majority until the end of time?
Israeli citizenship is automatic to Jews. It is a homeland for us.
Jewish academic, literary, scientific and artistic accomplishment means that left alone Israel will always be governed by Jews. Everybody is sick to death of Bibi. HeтАЩs on his way out. He never gets a majority. Because Israel is a democracy, the voters will get him out. He tried to rig the system through the courts and the population stopped him. His downfall is in abeyance because of the war but itтАЩs not eternally vacated.
Contrary to GlaudeтАЩs throwaway statement, the Likud doesnтАЩt represent Israel any more than MAGA represents the US. ItтАЩs just a significant and dangerous minority.
The real threats to Israel, unlike here, are from the outside. Israel is surrounded by enemies on every side. But, even some of those enemies want to do business with Israel. Many of them would be fine with Israeli Jews being dead, but since theyтАЩre not dead, theyтАЩll work with them. They also share the hatred of Iran.
All of that being true means that the Jews will run their homeland for a long, long time. We were ethnically cleansed; the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis means that there are fewer Jews now than there were in 1940. ThatтАЩs what those words mean.
Israel is a vital US ally. ItтАЩs the single source of valuable intel from the Mideast. Absent mass murder itтАЩs not going anywhere.
There are Israeli Arabs. They have a political party and the right to ask for citizenship. They arenтАЩt conscripted, however, although they may volunteer. The Bedouins always volunteer. In my opinion that means the Bedouins should be able to walk into citizenship and assimilate completely if they like, or not.
Can you not understand why Jews donтАЩt want someone else to run their country? No one is forced to live in Israel. The Arabs who live there chose to live there from the mandate forward.
The US is an enormous, rapidly evolving population with hundreds of religions, cultures, and races. Israel is a tiny community with a total of about five religions and exists as a haven for people nobody else wanted. The idea of someone else running it is anathema. Nobody wanted the place. It was a waterless wasteland. When the Jews came home they turned it into a verdant, productive country.
Sorry to run on, truly. ThatтАЩs my plan, though.
Bibi has been in power for how long? The Israeli public is responsible for electing a corrupt and incompetent leader who discriminates against Palestinians in the occupied territories. The result is a loss of support for Israel by a large portion of the American public.
BidenтАЩs support for Israel may contribute to the American public electing a corrupt and incompetent authoritarian leader like Bibi. The whole situation is so sad.
Was the American public responsible for electing Trump? Bibi doesnтАЩt win majorities either.
IтАЩm reasonably confident that a nation like Israel isnтАЩt worried about winning a popularity contest. ItтАЩs worried about whether it continues to exist.
Most of America doesnтАЩt oppose the war and only for a tiny minority will it affect their vote. In Della VolpeтАЩs Harvard Youth Poll (a gold standard) voters 18-29 identified it as 13th in importance to their vote. Thirteenth.
Israel has a repulsive right wing, steeped in religious nonsense. Sound familiar? Either it saves itself or it doesnтАЩt, but your suggestion that it stop defending its right to exist because it elected someone who is scrambling to stay out of prison is a tiny bit antisemitic. And since it is the only democracy and the only source of Mideast intel in allyship with the US, we have a vital role in helping it survive.
It feels a bit rich to me that whether Israel doesnтАЩt trust Palestinians is more bewildering or surprising than why a single Arab nation wonтАЩt take them in. Why do you suppose Egypt built a wall to keep them out? Or Jordan? Food for thought.
Where did I suggest that Israel stop defending itтАЩs right to exist?
When you suggested Israel should be more concerned about the Palestinians than the PalestiniansтАЩ own (elected) government is.
You donтАЩt see Arab nations lining up to protest on behalf of the Palestinians. DonтАЩt you wonder why that is? Nations like Jordan flew defense for Israel when Iran attacked.
Support for Hamas was 40-50% amongst the Palestinian people before the war. The Arab nations (except Iran, which isnтАЩt Arab but gets lumped in all of the time) are going to scapegoat Gaza for this.
IsraelтАЩs duty is to defend Israel and that means neutralizing Hamas. The UN has now determined that Hamas vastly overinflated the number of dead, and that 14K of the actual dead were Hamas fighters.
That sounds pretty surgical to me.
Hamas is a terrorist organization that does not care at all about their citizens. I expect everybody to care more about the Palestinians than Hamas does. Half the Palestinian population is under 18, those under 30 were under 12 when Hamas was elected. The majority of the current population did not elect Hamas.
Israel absolutely has a right to defend its right to exist. But if the Israeli government is going to prop up Hamas at the expense of the PA then it has responsibility not to kill so many children, starve the population and withhold medicine and thereby cause so much suffering. Netanyahu arranged for Qatar to fund Hamas with the permission of the Trump administration. The Israeli government ignored intelligence about the terrorist attack on its own citizens while its military protected settlers terrorizing Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel does not have a long term plan for Gaza that promotes peace in the region. Maybe you are right and it will turn out to be surgical when all the evidence is in but it does not look that way so far.
You seem to suggest that all Palestinians are evil so no Arab nations want to take them in. I think that Palestinians are just like Americans and Israelis, mostly good, although Palestinians have harder lives.
All polling shows the Israel populace basically agreeing with the right-wing view on what the military and government should treat Palestinians.
I imagine so. They were attacked.
As I said, BibiтАЩs comeuppance is on hold, not cancelled.
How many Palestinian civilians would you say is too many, even if it means Hamas stays a threat? 25k? 50k? 100k? 500k?
I donтАЩt think about it. Civilians die in wars that arise from attacks. I donтАЩt run IsraelтАЩs military, I simply support it.
It would be great if ANY Arab nation would welcome in the Gazans, though.
Not think about it, seriously? It would be great if either Egypt or Jordan would take a more active role in facilitating aid to Gaza but why should they take in refugees w/o any agreement with a reliable Israeli government about rights to return to that limited space? In light of events of past 10-15 years in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that have left non-Israeli citizens essentially stateless, how are we as Americans supposed to be expected to trust the Israeli populace?
You missed my sarcasm. No Arab nation will assist them or have them. And there are excellent reasons for that which are unrelated to a тАЬright of return.тАЭ
How did you move so easily from the Israeli government to the Israeli тАЬpopulace?тАЭ If thatтАЩs the rule, I suppose itтАЩs fair to equate the Palestinian populace with its government.
This is a war for the existence of a nation which is home to people determined to make sure the existence continues. Hamas shouldnтАЩt have attacked it, a fact which is sadly unimportant to too many people.
So, the killing of 1,000 Israeli's is a horrible crime (which is true) that proves protestors are all evil anti-Zionists but the killing of thousands of civilians in Gaza is a shrug.
I'm not surprised you think the Gazans should just leave and let West Bank become part of Greater Israel. Which is y'know, the reasons Gazans don't leave - because they know that's what Israeli's want. An excuse not to let them back to the West Bank.